Today education must focuses on the development of skills and abilities that allow everyone to build their own knowledge, to face new situations and resolve new problems by themselves. The greatest mistake is to believe that education is simply the acquisition of knowledge and this is the solution to all problems. Knowledge is nothing if we do not know how to use it properly, appropriately, ethically and correctly. Do not confuse knowledge with competence. Knowledge is what you know and competence is how you apply it. Competence can not be achieved without the corresponding knowledge but knowledge can exist without the competence as people call it “Wishful thinking”. In this case, people talk about knowledge but do not know how to apply it or do not want to use it. The goal of learning is know how to filter and organize available information and distinguish between the data and information that make up the knowledge.
The era of knowledge-based economy has opened up new challenge for the education system. Today society demands that everybody should have access to education throughout their lives. This is not just the traditional education where children go to schools from kindergarten to colleges but throughout their life or lifelong study. Educational systems must respond to these new demands and create the conditions for this kind of education to take place. As technologies changes every year so does education system must adjust or else they will be left behind.
This is why education should not just be a process of transfer knowledge but must focus on the ability to learn how to learn. The education system should broaden the practicability aspect rather than achieve the specialization of knowledge within rigid structures of modeling, theorization with “Book knowledge” and “Rote memorization”. We must educate our young people for their entire life because preparation for life is also preparation for the principles of good living such as ethics, citizenship and preservation of the environment. All of this implies great changes in the structure of educational system which until now has only focus on a certain period in people’s lives. The new education of the 21st century should be redesigned to achieve the need for life-long learning.
All changes require new attitudes and mentalities of its citizen. Strengthen the knowledge-based economy by means of better education and training are essential because without these elements, developing countries will continue to exist simply as those with many factories with miserable conditions of work, where incomes will be determined by cheap labor and people will work only on assembling high technology products and thus suffering ever-increasing technological backwardness in relation to the creation and innovation of technology products. Of course, education always come with a price but if you think education is expensive, try ignorant. Without a good education system, no country can prosper to this highly competitive world because if you do not improve, other countries will.
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Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
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Source: SEGVN