Higher Education in Southeast Asia and Beyond #Issue 06

DISRUPTIONS AND HIGHER EDUCATION: THE COMING CRUNCH
an array of courses to anyone on AI and
robotics, blockchain, data science analytics,
e-commerce, virtual reality, and the
internet of things.
Colleges and universities in Asia have
begun to realise the changes in store for
the labour market and workplace. A 2018
Microsoft study found that, driven by
digital economy and AI, 85 percent of the
jobs in the Asia-Pacific will change by 2021
(Microsoft 2018). According to the study,
half will become higher value work roles
and require massive reskilling. A study of
economic and technological disruption by
McKinsey and Co. showed how technological
change reshaped and will reshape Asia
in the years 2010-2020. These two major
global companies, Microsoft and McKinsey,
highlight disruptions, but not as disinterested
parties. The future growth and survival of
these organisations depend heavily upon an
unlimited digitalisation of higher education
and the economy in Asia.
McKinsey and Co. is disingenuous to declare
that Asia’s current disruption is historically
extraordinary. Asia has overcome civil wars,
ethnic conflicts, foreign invasions, trade
embargoes, starvation, social instability
and collapse, terrorism, as well as climate
disasters such as typhoons, tidal waves and
earthquakes. The McKinsey 288-page report,
based on “years of research” by a company
“Universities can engage
effectively with these
disruptions by remaining
mission-focussed not
mission-fuzzy; by remaining
market-smart, not market-led.”
worth US$10 billion with 27,000 employees,
failed to give any mention to economic
inequality in Asia. The Bank of America
and the economist Thomas Piketty have
shown that Asia will continue to be the most
unequal part of the world in terms of income.
The World Economic Forum puts widening
inequality on record as “one of the key
challenges of our time.” The McKinsey and
Co. report mentions the word “consumer” 10
times, “productivity” 19 times, and economic
“growth” 48 times. It mentions “climate
change” only three times, “women” twice,
and “education” only twice.
It may not be surprising that colleges
and universities in Asia lead the world
in the implementation of liberal studies
curriculum. The core values and mission
HESB | SEPTEMBER 2019 | ISSUE #06 | PAGE 13