Zheng Qian and Thaddaeus 4C

Future of work:

The future of work is a whole new paradigm, on one hand it is unpredictable due to the ever-changing and modernising world , with referrence to the web and social networking sites and IT industry-related jobs that were non-existant in the last decade or two before rapid technological advances in the net. On the other hand, amount of productivity is becoming measurable with implementation of tracking programmes and the like, so that the amount of work clocked in by employees and the effort they commute can now be proportional to the salary they obtain , reducing the need of complains of unfair wages and disproportionate workloads, and this increases efficiency of businesses as employers are now guranteed that employees do not get away with downtime and motivates them to put in their best performance around the clock to achieve the maximum gains. Future of work is also a competitive one, and employees are not guranteed a lifetime job. Employers tend to employ via contracts of several years rather than hire new employees, so as to constantly take in new batches of innovative and efficient workers and to spurr existing ones to work harder to keep their jobs. Demand for innovation becomes the key , and upgrading oneself is essential to keep up pace with the future of work. Education is now easily accessible, be it through informal education via online wikipedias and articles, or online courses from renowned universities such as Stanford. As such, there is no excuse for not knowing certain information due to self negligence. Degrees no longer equivalent to pay or jobs, with colleges in america being the new highschool as an increasing percentage of them access college as the years go by. Location is also no longer a factor. an example being the huge inconvenient call centres once located in rural areas such as. india, have been replaced with revolutionary customer service sources that can be set up on flight without a central office, as in the case of Jetblue and its revolutionary services. The above two points link me back to the topic on growing competiveness in the future of work, as employers now access a larger skilled workforce with access to degrees and location of work becoming less relevenent obstacles to employees.

Qn: Which education system (European or Asian) best prepares students for the work of the future (knowledge economy) ?

The European education system best prepares students for the work of the future. The Asian education system also prepared student for the work of the future. It takes charge of its students' learning process, and influences him to take safe paths and not take risks. This prevents the students from failure. Also, the student will be more inclined to a job with a good market value. However, this education system is inflexible and causes the student to have a lack of passion and interest in what he studies and what he works as in the future. It also prevents them from having the opportunity to experience and learn from failure.The European education lets the student tale charge of his learning process. They let students choose what to read, what assignments to complete and how to do them. They also encourage students to ask questions and participate actively in class. This helps students to be independent which is important in the work of the future. Also, it helps the students to solve unstructured problems that they may face at work. This also means that students will have the initiative to do things and have curiosity at work. This shows that the European education system best prepared students for work of the future.