The Degree Is Ready. Is the Mind?
We are preparing students for jobs while AI is preparing to redesign the jobs.
We conducted a simple experiment.
We went into different kinds of schools — international schools, government schools, government-aided schools and private schools.
We spoke to students.
And somewhere between the conversations, an uncomfortable pattern emerged.
One student said:
“Sir, if you can invest the money, we can do the business.”
Another said:
“We need a job, sir.”
Another:
“₹5,000 per month is too less, sir.”
We asked:
“How much do you want?”
The answer came quickly:
“₹30,000, sir.”
Another:
“₹35,000, sir.”
There is nothing wrong with wanting ₹30,000 or ₹35,000.
There is nothing wrong with wanting a secure job.
There is nothing wrong with wanting a comfortable life.
The disturbing question is different:
What exactly have we trained the student to believe about how that income is created?
THE GREAT EDUCATIONAL PROMISE
For decades, the implicit social contract has been remarkably simple:
Study well → get a degree → get a job → earn a salary → build a career.
Parents repeated it.
Teachers repeated it.
Schools repeated it.
Colleges repeated it.
Society repeated it.
And students believed it.
So the child learns to ask:
“Which course should I study?”
Then:
“Which college should I join?”
Then:
“Which company will recruit me?”
Then:
“What salary will I get?”
But there is another question that increasingly needs to come first:
“What valuable problem can I solve?”
That question changes everything.
AI HAS ENTERED THE EQUATION
We are now living in a world where software can increasingly perform tasks that previously required human labour.
AI can write.
AI can analyse.
AI can generate images.
AI can translate.
AI can summarize.
AI can write software.
AI can inspect documents.
AI can automate workflows.
AI can operate continuously.
And unlike a human employee, software does not need sleep, lunch breaks, annual leave, or a commute.
But the real danger is not that AI will simply take everyone's jobs.
The deeper danger is this:
People who understand how to use AI to solve problems may increasingly compete with people who only know how to perform the tasks AI can automate.
That distinction is enormous.
THE PROBLEM IS NOT THE DEGREE
Let us be careful here.
An engineering degree is not useless.
A commerce degree is not useless.
A computer-science degree is not useless.
A management degree is not useless.
The problem is believing that the degree itself is the value.
A degree is evidence that someone completed a particular educational pathway.
It does not automatically prove that the person can:
identify a real problem,
understand why the problem exists,
ask intelligent questions,
analyse evidence,
work with people,
use technology,
design solutions,
test assumptions,
create economic value,
communicate the solution,
adapt when circumstances change.
And this is where education has a much bigger problem than AI.
We may be teaching advanced technology to minds that have never been trained to think.
THE ₹35,000 QUESTION
Imagine asking a student:
“You want ₹35,000 per month. What can you create that is worth ₹35,000 per month to someone?”
Silence.
Ask:
“What problem can you solve for a small manufacturer?”
Silence.
“What problem can you solve for a farmer?”
Silence.
“What problem can you solve for a retailer?”
Silence.
“What repetitive business process can you automate?”
Silence.
But ask:
“Which job do you want?”
Suddenly there are answers.
This is the fundamental shift we have failed to make.
We have taught students to search for employment before teaching them to understand value.
FROM JOB SEEKER TO PROBLEM SOLVER
A student should eventually be able to look at a business and ask:
Where is time being wasted?
Where is money being lost?
Where is human effort being unnecessarily repeated?
Where is information getting lost?
Where is productivity falling?
Where is customer experience breaking down?
Where can AI help?
Where should AI NOT be used?
What can be redesigned?
What can be automated?
What new value can be created?
That is not merely "AI education."
That is leadership thinking.
AND HERE IS THE IRONY
Some institutions proudly tell us:
“Our students are learning AI.”
Wonderful.
But what happens when the student opens ChatGPT?
If the student's only question is:
“Give me the answer.”
then we have not necessarily created an AI-enabled thinker.
We may simply have created a person who knows how to outsource thinking.
The more important question is:
“What question should I ask?”
And before that:
“What problem am I actually trying to solve?”
And before even that:
“Why does this problem exist?”
That is where education needs to go.
TECHNOLOGY WITHOUT THINKING IS JUST FASTER CONFUSION
You can give a student the most sophisticated AI system in the world.
You can teach prompt engineering.
You can teach robotics.
You can teach coding.
You can teach drones.
You can teach data analytics.
You can teach automation.
You can build beautiful AI laboratories.
You can conduct hackathons.
You can distribute certificates.
But if the student cannot distinguish:
symptom from problem,
information from knowledge,
knowledge from understanding,
activity from achievement,
technology from value,
then what exactly have we accomplished?
We have simply given a powerful machine to an untrained decision-maker.
THE HACKATHON TRAP
There is another uncomfortable question.
If a student wins a hackathon, does that automatically mean the student has learned leadership?
Not necessarily.
A student can build something impressive during a competition and still struggle to answer:
Who actually needs this?
Why do they need it?
Will they pay for it?
What problem does it solve?
What happens if the solution fails?
Can it survive outside the competition?
Can it create measurable economic or social value?
The ability to build something is important.
But knowing what deserves to be built is a higher-order capability.
PARENTS HAVE A ROLE TOO
Parents cannot simply be blamed.
They are operating with the map they were given.
For generations, the safest advice was:
“Study hard.”
“Get a degree.”
“Get a good job.”
“Settle down.”
That advice made sense in a different economic environment.
But the world has changed.
So perhaps parents now need to ask different questions.
Not only:
“What marks did you get?”
but:
“What did you learn to solve?”
Not only:
“Which college will you join?”
but:
“What capability will you develop there?”
Not only:
“What salary will you get?”
but:
“What value will you be able to create?”
SCHOOLS MUST CHANGE THE QUESTION
The traditional classroom asks:
“Did you get the correct answer?”
The future classroom must increasingly ask:
“Did you ask the right question?”
The traditional classroom asks:
“Can you remember this?”
The future classroom must ask:
“Can you apply this?”
The traditional classroom asks:
“Can you pass the examination?”
The future classroom must ask:
“Can you solve something that matters?”
The traditional classroom rewards the student who knows.
The future must also reward the student who can:
observe → question → analyse → imagine → experiment → build → measure → learn → improve.
THE REAL EDUCATIONAL EMERGENCY
The emergency is not that AI is becoming intelligent.
The emergency is that human beings may remain intellectually dependent while their machines become increasingly capable.
That is the paradox.
We are giving children extraordinary tools.
But are we developing extraordinary judgment?
We are teaching them how to use technology.
But are we teaching them when to use it?
We are teaching them how to generate answers.
But are we teaching them how to challenge answers?
We are teaching them how to build products.
But are we teaching them how to identify meaningful problems?
We are preparing them for employment.
But are we preparing them for a world in which the nature of employment itself is changing?
THE QUESTION EDUCATION CANNOT ESCAPE
International schools.
Government schools.
Government-aided schools.
Private schools.
Engineering colleges.
Commerce colleges.
Universities.
Parents.
Teachers.
Policymakers.
Everyone needs to confront the same question:
If AI can increasingly perform the task, what uniquely human capability are we developing in the person who supervises, directs, questions, redesigns and improves that task?
Because the future does not belong simply to the person who knows AI.
Nor does it belong simply to the person with the highest degree.
The critical capability is increasingly the combination:
THINKING + DOMAIN KNOWLEDGE + AI + DESIGN + HUMAN JUDGMENT
DON'T ASK, “WHAT JOB WILL MY CHILD GET?”
Ask something harder.
What problems will my child be capable of solving?
What decisions will my child be capable of making?
What systems will my child understand?
What assumptions will my child challenge?
What value will my child be capable of creating?
What will my child do when the job they prepared for changes?
That is the conversation we should be having.
Because perhaps the biggest educational mistake of the AI era would be this:
Teaching children to compete for yesterday's jobs using tomorrow's technology.
The world doesn't merely need students who can use AI.
It needs human beings who can think clearly enough to tell AI what should be done, why it should be done, whether it should be done, and what consequences may follow.
And that means the real revolution in education is not going to begin with a new AI tool.
It will begin when we change the question we ask a child.
Not:
“What job do you want?”
But:
Comments
Post a Comment