Abstract
In this chapter, Bernard Yeung raises a controversial issue: that the current stage of industrial and technological revolution creates economic anxiety and doubts on university education’s value. Universities’ response should be sticking to the basics: advance research and train students to be life-long learners. In this context, university and educational institutions need to emphasize principle, data, technology, and human literacy. Yeung also strongly supports the need to emphasize the inclination to ask meaningful questions, to practice critical thinking, and to inculcate in students a sense of responsibility to do good in society.
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Notes
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- 2.
“Printing” is not a one-time innovation; it developed over time and probably originated from multiple locations. It is, however, quite widely recognized that the invention of the Gutenberg printing press in 1450, allowed for improved communication throughout Europe and for ideas to spread more quickly. See https://www.history.com/topics/renaissance/renaissance.
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These centuries bred great scientists who made invaluable and fundamental contributions in our advancement in science—Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543), William Gilbert (1544–1604), Galileo Galilei (1563–1642), Johannes Kepler (1571–1630), William Harvey (1578–1657), Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695), and Isaac Newton (1643–1727), just to name a few. Indeed, these centuries featured an almost endless list of great scientists, thinkers, and philosophers who fundamentally shaped the modern world as we know now.
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Technology allows large scale production, which is fruitful only if there is cooperative exchange which allows markets to grow. Adam Smith (1776, Ch. 3) states the following: “As it is the power of exchanging that gives occasion to the division of labor, … When the market is very small, no person can have any encouragement to dedicate himself entirely to one employment, for want of the power to exchange all that surplus part of the produce of his own labor, which is over and above his own consumption.”
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Excerpts from The Fourth Industrial Revolution, by Klaus Schwab (2016).
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Developed economies feature stronger universities. There is no denial that they could side-step the concern by accepting more students from developing economies.
References
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McAfee, Andrew, and Erik Brynjolfsson. 2017. Machine, Platform, Crow. Harnessing Our Digital Future. New York: W. W. Norton.
Roser, Max. 2018. Economic Growth. Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/economic-growth.
Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1934. Theory of Economic Development. Transaction Publishers, 5th ed., 1997 (Originally published: Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1934).
Schwab, Klaus. 2015. The Fourth Industrial Revolution: What It Means and How to Respond. Foreign Affairs, December.
Schwab, Klaus. 2016. The Fourth Industrial Revolution. New York: Crown Business.
Smith, Adam. 1776. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell.
Acknowledgements
I am most grateful to Jordi Canals, for his encouragement and his many helpful comments in improving the essay.
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Yeung, B. (2020). University, Education, Technology, and the Future of Work. In: Canals, J., Heukamp, F. (eds) The Future of Management in an AI World. IESE Business Collection. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20680-2_6
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