Fourth Industrial Revolution: Education Needs to Be

Focused on
Dr. Munaz Ahmed Noor

14 September, 2019 12:00 AM

https://www.daily-sun.com/printversion/details/423318/Fourth-Industrial-Revolution:-Education-
Needs-to-Be-Focused-on

The fourth industrial revolution is going to add a new dimension to the world civilisation. The
process and the probability of this revolution have already created huge discussion all over the
world. The discussion is also prevailing in Bangladesh. A type of consciousness has already been
created through this discussion. The first and the second industrial revolution took place before
the advent of Bangladesh. The process of the third industrial revolution also started before the
birth of Bangladesh. Though, the effect of the third industrial revolution has taken its root into
Bangladesh after the declaration of building ‘Digital Bangladesh’ by the honourable Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2008, now we dream to lead in the fourth industrial revolution.

What is Industrial Revolution?

We call it industrial revolution when a massive change takes place in a society regarding in the
pattern of industry, communications system, social system and economic system. A total of three
industrial revolutions have already taken place in the world so far. Now the fourth industrial
revolution is beckoning us.

We get ‘steam engine’ and ‘mechanisation of our industry’ from the first industrial revolution.
These two things had sped up the modern industry; revolutionary change had taken place in
financial activities and new horizon of financial emancipation disclosed to the people.
We get ‘electricity’ and ‘automation of our industry’ from second industrial revolution. As a
consequence, machines start to work automatically.

We get semiconductor and trangister that led to the development of computer and emergence of
internet from the third industrial revolution. It has brought revolution in knowledge stem from
our brain instead of physical labour. The level of production in industry has been multifolded.
A new revolution has started to surpass these three revolutions that we termed digital revolution
or Fourth Industrial Revolution. It is expected that Bangladesh will be pioneer in reaping the
success of this revolution. To do so, first we need to give emphasis on our education. We have to
nourish a skilled human resource conformable to the fourth industrial revolution.

We got a fresh education system that is familiar to ‘new education system’ from the classical
system during the first industrial revolution. We got divisions in degrees. Then the degrees
started to go for further division. The basic departments have been devided into several more
departments. For example, the Engineering department has been divided into Civil, Mechanical
and Electrical Engineering. Electrical Engineering has been devided into Computer Science,
Mechatronics, ECE etc. Mechanisation of our industry is the main cause behind these divisions.
Flourishment of education started to surface after the second industrial revolution. Only 5 per
cent of the people were incorporated in education during the first industrial revolution where
around 25 per cent of the people were incorporated in the second industrial revolution. Multi
dimensional institutions of higher education (public, private and research based university) have
emerged. Research based universities were not available before this revolution.

After the third industrial revolution, online education has taken its root into the society. As a
result, the students get the opportunity to acquire degrees sitting in their rooms. They are able to
improve their skills through massive open online courses.

The direct impact of the third industrial revolution in the social life of modern people is very
deep-rooted though the impact was not so vivid in the first two revolutions. The world is still
going through the third industrial revolution. We are incorporating several parts of the third in
the fourth industrial revolution. We could keep these to the previous one, but we see that the
massive four changes those are necessary for an industrial revolution have already started to take

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place. The four massive criteria are: mode of industry, communications system, social system
and development of economic condition.

For these reasons, we are saying it the fourth industrial revolution. Technology has been mingled
with intelligence here. Earlier, it was only information, now the word ‘intelligence’ has been
added with it. So, we can say it as the fourth industrial revolution. Artificial intelligence,
quantum computing, big data, robotics, nano-technology, bio-technology, material science,
internet of things, block chain technology, mechatronics, autonomous robot, 3-D printing, cloud
computing are the driving force of the fourth industrial revolution. New more topics can be
added to these.

The first, second and the third phases of industrial revolution have already taken place in the
world and now we are talking about the fourth industrial revolution. Now the question is what’s
the condition of Bangladesh?

Without going to the fourth industrial revolution, frankly speaking even the effect of the first and
the second industrial revolution could not hit the education system of our country. Colonalisation
was the main obstacle behind it. We could not establish a research based university even in the
year of 2019 that Germany had done in the middle of the nineteenth century. Thanks to the
access to online university education in the world, the flourishment of education is increasing
very fastly. Bangladesh is yet to tap the potential of the system. Though education has extended
all over the country, we could not make it modern and time-befiting with an easier system. The
year 2012 was declared as the year of MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) all over the world
though we could not set it up in any university of the country. The skill development platforms
like MOOC, Coursera, Edex and Udemi are not established in our country so far though some
are striving.

As the consequence of the first, second and the third industrial revolution is not so vivid in
Bangladesh, honourable prime minister and her ICT advisor established a university in 2016 to
make Bangladesh competent in leading the fourth industrial revolution. It is said in the law of the
university that it can conduct online education activities. The authorities of the university are
also endorsed to confer degrees through online, they can also conduct MOOC. The name of the
university is Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Digital University, Bangladesh (BDU).
Undoubtedly, this is the outcome of visionary thinking of our honourable Prime Minister Sheikh
Hasina and her ICT advisor Sajib Ahmed Wazed.

In Bangladesh, now we are providing education to our students through didactic pedagogy.
Through this system, students gather knowledge when teachers deliver their lecture after
attending in classes. This system no longer exists so deeply in the world, though our classes
remain in the then outdated system. We are providing education and taking examinations
confining our students in a room unlike the developed countries. Developed countries are
advancing toward easier systems though we are still lagging behind in mere discussions. In fact,
our mentality is not global so far.

We must go toward a new system if we want to get global mentality, achieve global standard of
our universities and create opportunity for the foreign students. We have to create opportunity
for the foreign students to acquire degree sitting at their home.

We are still providing face to face education to our students. Our curriculum is still based on
textbooks. Our students are memorising a topic and vomiting it at the exam papers. We cannot
proceed on following this. Many say that the duty of a university is to transfer of knowledge. The
word is right if we consider till the third industrial revolution. The current world has adopted a
new system. That is recreation of knowledge. The students will recreate knowledge with the help
of the teachers in the class room adopting this system.  

Now the question may come what we have to do or what should have been done? Towards
which direction we have to take our universities? How will we prepare our students for the fourth
industrial revolution?

The perception quality of every student of a class is not the same. The teacher will go to every
student to make him/her understand is also a wrong conception. Every student has his/her own
way of learning. This is called differentiated learning. It is very difficult to provide differentiated

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learning in a class. But, it can be delivered through technology. Such as, if a video lecture is
provided to the students, they can come to the class learning from it. Then teacher will monitor
who could not understand and who are understood. Then teacher will arrange discussions among
them to create a scope of sharing knowledge from same field of experience. We call it
collaborative learning, because a student can learn easily from his classmates.

Now the question is who will teach his classmate? A teacher will teach his classmates following
a different methods. We call it flip learning, which is a part of blended learning. Face to face
method of learning, audio, visual, online everything will be in the blended learning. Taking them
outside of class is a part of flip learning. The students will be provided with documents through
online or other electronic machine to study when he will be outside of class. Then he will discuss
in collaborative method or peer method in class where teacher will play a role of assistant.
No one can do a work alone in the fourth industrial revolution. He must work congruent with
everybody. You have to extend your learning to everyone if you want to work with them. We
have to prepare our students in such a way that they can learn a new thing by themselves.

The main problem of our educational institutions is not to prepare our students for the unseen
future. Generaly, we are getting skilled by learning pros and cons of a definite sector of our
profession. We call it continuous professesonal development of our skill. But what if when our
profession will change? So, you have to learn other skills too. You have to go through in a
systematic process of learn, unlearn and relearn. In this system, learn is the student will aquire
expertise in a definite sector. Unlearn is that the student will forget what they learned to cope
with the changing situation and relearn is that the student will learn again after the emergence of
a new technology.

A student of the fourth industrial revolution must have to learn, forget and relearn. This is called
life long learning. He has to learn life long; he has to unlearn life long and will have to relearn
life long. The definition of illiteracy nowadays is not dependent on knowing how to read and
write; rather the definition of illiteracy is unknowing of how to learn, unlearn and relearn.

We still think that education is a vaccine. If we take a vaccine for a disease, the disease will not
attack again. In the same way, we think that if a man can be taught from primary to tertiary, he
does not need to be educated further. But education is neither the vaccine nor the development of
regulatory skill. Besides, we should not go for the development of regulatory skill because, say a
student has started to acquire a degree but after four years it is seen that the profession does not
exist in the world. What will be the solution for the student then? Therefore, the future job
market will be - man will have to do what machine cannot do. Frankly speaking, what machine
can do or what man will have to do is still unknown. Though we can say it following a method
and the method is if a job is rule-based, measurable and can be put on a formula, then machine
can do the job. 

The job of physicians might be abolished because their job is rule-based and can be measured.
These jobs can be done through artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Machine only
cannot do the creative jobs and only that jobs will be left for the humen. As a result, a new
economic system will emerge and we have to be prepared for adopting with that system as a
nation.

We know that the fourth industrial revolution is the fusion of physical, digital and biological
sphere. Here physical implies human, biological implies nature and digital implies technology. It
is becoming impossible to separate these three entities. What is the effect on the society? The
effect is that intellectualisation has taken place, human-machine interface happens and reality
and virtuality are being mingled.

Now, if we want to prepare our students for the fourth industrial revolution, we have to exart
emotional intelligence, physical intelligence, social intelligence and content intelligence to their
brain. Only then, we will be able to prepare a student for the fourth industrial revolution.
What will be the outcome of these? The students who are entering primary education today, 15
per cent of them will find that the work they are doing is no more in future. But new avenues of
work will be created although what type of work will be created is still unknown. We can devide
our education system into several parts to prepare our students for this unknown future. If we can
devide our education system into the followings parts, we can achieve many things within 10
years. If we can implement even one among these something will be happened.

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01 Flexibility of Education
a. To facilitate real lifelong inclusive and equitable quality learning opportunities and award
appropriate qualifications, learning, be it formal, non-formal or informal, physical or digital,
should be converted into a kind of blocks system which people will use to build into educational
qualifications, similar to how LEGO blocks are used to create different figures.
b. Should strongly focus on outcome-based curricula and programmes
c. Facilitate flexible awarding of educational qualifications based on outcome-based units, what
we fondly call the LEGO blocks of learning. Short term degree.
d. There is a need to focus on ICT and future technologies, teacher education and lifelong
learning for an adaptable and flexible education system
e. Hybrid online and in-person instruction, and efficient and seamless integration of a wide array
of asynchronous educational resources
f.  Blended instruction and optimisation of flipped and online courses;

02 Liberalisation of Education
a. Expansion of teachers’ authority in curriculum design and
b.  New assessment system to promote students’ skill growth
c. Innovation of lectures in Universities

03 Humanisation of Education
a. Inclusion of educationally deprived class of people
b. Inclusion of economically deprived class of people
c. Inclusion of information deprived class of people
d Expansion of opportunities for adult life long learning
e. Inclusion of more liberal Arts education

04 Personalisation of Education
a. With the evolution of online instruction and expanded uses of AI, new guidelines are needed
for digital pedagogy for personalisation of education
b. Substantial changes to the STEAM curriculum will be required. Designing for an individual’s
changing needs, unique talents and interests.
Tension between the competing forces of personalisation and standardisation:
c. Personalisation - designing for an individual’s; changing needs, unique talents and interests,
d. Standardisation - engine for rapid growth, lower costs and greater profits.
e. Standardisation is not the same as high standards.

05 Specialisation of Education
a. Certain restructuring of institutions to provide new science programmes and departments in
emerging inter-disciplinary fields
b. Advance and accelerate the development of ever-more sophisticated 4IR technological
subjects.
c. Provide more personal space to be part of intelligent information society.
If we can devide our education system according to the above mentioned parts, we can also lead
the fourth industrial revolution as a nation keeping pace with the unbelievable advancement of
technology. To do so, we must ensure inclusive favourable environment in our education system.
We must do it and do it at once. If we cannot do so, the fourth industrial revolution will be
confined to our mere discussions; we will be lagging behind a far way.
 
The writer is the Vice-chancellor, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Digital University,
Bangladesh