Welcome to transition - Day 1

Education of the future

Summer School

Education faces many changes and people have to adapt to these changes by gaining new knowledge, new skills, using technology – those were some of the educators’ remarks during the first day of the Youth International Summer School, held from 10th to 15th of August in the city of Reykjavik.

At the inaugural ceremony Nevena Šaulić, the development manager at the Youth Time International movement (YTIM) Team, which had organized the Summer School with the help of the University of Iceland, The City of Reykjavik, Fab Lab and KPMG, she read a greeting letter from the president of YTIM, Julia Kinash, where she pointed out that technology and innovation have already brought great changes to the job marketplace, leading to a disruption in the skills that we’ve been in need of before.

“Not only is this happening now, but it is happening rapidly, and it is continuing to evolve almost on a daily basis with the introduction of robotic automation, technological innovations and digitalization set to cost millions of people their jobs worldwide”, said Kinash.

How to adapt to those changes and what is the role of education – this was one of the topics of the first master class

The biggest challenges in education

Hrishabh Sandilya, the director of Partnerships and Development at Project Phoenix, a European NGO and social enterprise, said that education is changing in terms of how, what and why.

“How is it being conducted and delivered? Are we moving from the physical to digital in terms of delivery? Also, what are people studying? Are they studying skills, technology, codes? And why? Are we studying to learn, to be educated, or are we studying to make money in our future jobs?”, he asked.

He noted that the biggest challenge the education is facing today is Covid-19 and emphasized that over a billion children haven’t been in school over couple of months because of the pandemic.

Education during pandemic situation

One of the countries that wasn’t prepared for the coronavirus crisis is the Czech Republic, said Lucie Mairychová, the co-founder and managing director of Institut kariéry a rozvoje.
Sharing her experience, she said that the teachers in her country, who had been doing that job for over 30 or 40 years, didn’t know or didn’t want to use technology during the pandemic.She stressed that one of the problems that the pandemic has brought to their attention was that not everybody had a computer and that not everybody could learn online.
On the other hand, for those who have access to technology and social media, it provides great opportunities, she added.

“Nothing can stop you. You can open your computer and learn from anywhere in the world”, said Mairychová.
She thinks that one important skill for the future would be to find a way of learning that suits you as an individual. Mairychová emphasized that, while most of the people have an opportunity to go to a university and learn, the thing that makes someone different is what they do in addition to that. “The magic is to use the technology in the right way”, Mairychová stressed.

Thora Óskarsdóttir, Director of Fab Lab Reykjavk spoke about how fab labs function and said that, when the coronavirus pandemic broke out, she and her colleagues were ready.
“We needed to work alone, but also to work together”, she said.
She also thinks that the one thing that everyone has learned in 2020 is that the future will change.

“But during these changes, people have to adapt”, warned Óskarsdóttir. Kolbrún Þorbjörg Pálsdóttir, Dean of the School of Education at the University of Iceland, said that the world has learned from Covid-19 and noted that the pandemic has not only its known dark sides, but also some positive ones. As a dark side, she listed the inequalities that the pandemic has stirred us into, but she also said that it pointed out some opportunities. “Everybody has to use the technology”, she said and stressed that it is very important not to go back to the way things were.

Thora Óskarsdóttir, Director of Fab Lab Reykjavk spoke about how fab labs function and said that, when the coronavirus pandemic broke out, she and her colleagues were ready.
“We needed to work alone, but also to work together”, she said. She also thinks that the one thing that everyone has learned in 2020 is that the future will change. “But during these changes, people have to adapt”, warned Óskarsdóttir.

Kolbrún Þorbjörg Pálsdóttir, Dean of the School of Education at the University of Iceland, said that the world has learned from Covid-19 and noted that the pandemic has not only its known dark sides, but also some positive ones. As a dark side, she listed the inequalities that the pandemic has stirred us into, but she also said that it pointed out some opportunities.
“Everybody has to use the technology”, she said and stressed that it is very important not to go back to the way things were