The W-shaped model of professional competencies for the Fourth Industrial Revolution and its relevance to honors programs

Beata Jones,Pierre Van Eijl,Josephine Lappia,Albert Pilot

doi:10.31378/jehc.123

Abstract

As the world is undergoing the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), the fusing of physical, digital, and biological worlds with the new technologies, we experience a profound impact of this revolution on the labor markets and subsequent career planning of students. The new economic reality created by 4IR calls for immediate action in the world of higher education. The purpose of this paper is to advocate for new key competencies that university students will need to thrive in the new economy. These competencies include human literacy, digital fluency, hyper-learning, and systems and design thinking. Together, they are presented as the ‘W- shaped 4IR Competency Model’. This model combines previously published opinions about the topic from various educational futurists who have tackled the issue. This paper includes a call to action for universities to address the skills gap challenge of college graduates and rethink their value propositions. As honors programs are the breeding ground for innovation, universities might consider starting to test the robot-proof, twenty-first-century curricula with the smaller honors cohorts and then consider the curricular transfer to the mainstream educational programs. We urge honors educators and administrators around the world to adopt curricula that will make their graduates ‘robot-proof’ and able to thrive in the new economy for decades to come.

Highlights

Schwab (2016) explains that the Fourth Industrial Revolution is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres
The paper builds on the ideas of the changing nature of people, labor markets, and learning as a function of 4IR and proposes a new framework, the Wmodel, for honors education competencies and higher education at large
As honors programs are the breeding ground for innovation, universities might consider testing the twenty-first-century curricula with the smaller honors cohorts eager to focus on self-improvement and willing to tackle the development of relevant competencies needed for the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Summary

Introduction

Higher education must prepare students for a working environment in an economy that has just undergone the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR, see Section 3), where artificial intelligence is increasingly playing an important role. Schwab (2016) explains that the Fourth Industrial Revolution is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres. 2. Purpose of honors programs in higher education and their innovative function The current purpose of higher education is to sustain the development of societies by enabling citizens to 1) play a productive role in society, 2) provide for a culture transfer, and 3) develop innate human potential (Seldon & Abidoye, 2018). Purpose of honors programs in higher education and their innovative function The current purpose of higher education is to sustain the development of societies by enabling citizens to 1) play a productive role in society, 2) provide for a culture transfer, and 3) develop innate human potential (Seldon & Abidoye, 2018) Universities achieve their missions by various means (Xing & Marwala, 2017), focusing on knowledge acquisition and, more recently, skills development. Multidisciplinary collaboration: Teamwork in projects where multidisciplinary perspectives were important

Creativity

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Conclusion