Students – they are the future of our world. Every generation has its own ambition. Understanding the future of the present generation of students is not at all an easy task. The world has evolved with wider opportunities for students to learn and grow. This opens up many paths for students to pursue their studies and career on. Today’s students are increasingly advanced, seeking more choices and wanting to make an impact on the world while also striving for a brighter future. Students at present have countless options than ever before regarding education and career. This leads to the question – What will be the future of students in few years’ time?

Do you remember life before technology started ruling our lives? Probably not. But can we imagine a life without technology now? Never. That’s how our lives keep changing. So, what would life be like for the working crowd of the year 2025 and beyond? It’s said that, by 2025, the world will lose over five million jobs to automation. This means the future jobs will vastly differ from the jobs available at present. Factory workers and physical production will be a talk of history and future jobs will involve more knowledge creation and innovation. Students must be well-prepared to face an ultra-competitive job market influenced by the spread of AI and automation. The future will see a rising need for software developers, database administrators, information security analysts and digital marketplace managers. Some of the other emerging job roles will be drone pilots, VR tour guides, AI and IOT platform developer and integrator and many more job roles that are demanded by a business that works with technology. On the other side, we will be seeing many jobs leaving the future workplace and this includes job roles such as telemarketers, manual maintenance engineers, graduate roles such as lawyer and accountant, bookkeeper and math technicians.

So, what skills and knowledge would the students require in the future to keep up with the demanding world? Here’s a peek into it. The future would bring problems you’ve never seen before in a world you’ve never experienced. In order to solve the complex problems it would bring, the emerging generation will need to have the mental flexibility to think outside the box, see the big picture and rearrange things to find a solution. Moreover, technology may take over many jobs, but it cannot do your critical thinking for you. Your future job will require you to analyze various situations, consider multiple decisions and look for logic and reasoning. And what more? Creativity will be on demand as technology can never be good as humans at creating original content. Although machines and technology will likely take over the future, it cannot empathize like humans do. People skills will be one of the requirements to manage and work with people well.  Most importantly, STEM skills will be of high demand in the future. This includes a vast knowledge in the subjects of science, technology, engineering and math.

Measuring student skill that can equip them well for the future consists of tangible and intangible results of their current soft skill development, creativity levels and how they address a problem using innovative strategies. To assess these capabilities, more opportunities should be available from an early stage in their education so that they are ready to take on the changes occurring in the marketplace rather than walking unprepared from an outdated educational system into a world of full of unattainable jobs.