Blueprint for schools of future

Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University's new college takes shape in Taicang, Jiangsu province, Alywin Chew reports in Shanghai.

The Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University held the groundbreaking ceremony for its new Entrepreneur College in Taicang, a county-level city in Suzhou, East China's Jiangsu province, on April 29, officially setting into motion its goal of debuting "a new educational model" that is said to be a leading one in the world.

Dubbed "syntegrative education", the model will "train future talent with cross-cultural leadership skills, management skills, and the ability to innovate and to master and incorporate new technology to lead the industries of the future", says Xi Youmin, XJTLU's executive president.

The college's new campus in Taicang will operate based on this model, and the facility is scheduled to open in 2021.

During a media trip to the university, Xi says this new education model would be pivotal in reforming higher education in China so as to arm today's students with the necessary skills in an increasingly digitized world.

"The current higher education model is focused largely on disciplinary education, which means students are restricted to studying just one area regardless of how diverse their interests are. This is too narrow a learning process for them," says Xi.

"Also, we need to start thinking about artificial intelligence and what it can do. Many students today could be replaced by AI in the years to come. As such, it's important for us to rethink the current education model and how we can teach students skills that would still be relevant in the future."

Xi says this new education model would feature a more comprehensive learning of the tech industries, including robotics, internet of things and smart manufacturing, and the integration of this knowledge with liberal arts education, traditional disciplinary education and management skills.

According to a 2017 research report by the McKinsey Global Institute, up to 800 million workers around the world could lose their jobs to robotic automation by 2030.

During the Summer Davos Forum in Tianjin last year, accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers released a report stating that nearly 26 percent of existing jobs in China could be automated over the next two decades.

However, AI and new technologies would also generate 90 million jobs over the same period, resulting in a 12 percent net gain in the number of jobs.

The rapid development of technology also has profound implications for the education sector. One of the most commonly cited estimates regarding this is that 65 percent of children entering primary school today would end up working in completely new job types that currently don't exist.

These findings point out that it is imperative that students of today possess the necessary tech skills to handle jobs in the future.

Companies also have a stake in what students are being taught today - many within the tech industry have lamented about the lack of talent with the right skills to navigate today's highly digital landscape.

Recruitment agency Michael Page last year released a survey, which found that 92 percent of fintech companies in China agreed that they were facing a shortage of talent.

Rupert Forster, managing director of Michael Page North and East China, told China Daily in an earlier interview that the company has noticed that there is a growing demand for people with skills related to AI, machine learning and deep learning.

Lim Eng Gee, director of the AI research center at XJTLU, says the university can help to bridge the skills gap as the new Taicang campus would have close ties with industry players.

Programs at the new campus would be jointly developed by XJTLU and companies that include multinational consumer electronics and home appliances company Haier Group, robotics giant Siasun, Shanghai Qiyuan Technology Co and China Cultural Media Group.

"AI ultimately needs to be controlled by humans. One of the objectives of the new campus is to train students to become the commanders of this technology," says Lim.

"But it won't just be about tech knowledge. Through our partnerships with major industry players, students will gain valuable industry insights and understand how a company operates. All this cannot be learned from books.

"We will also have a robotics factory where students will be exposed to real world settings and learn skills that are currently needed in the industry."