Work and Education in the Era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Abstract

Machines have been increasingly replacing aspects of human physical labor since the modern industrial revolution, and scientists and futurists predict that future scientific and technological revolutions will soon replace most mental labor. This prediction creates two conflicting educational requirements. The first is the need for jobs that have promising potential in future society and can withstand job cuts and rapid changes in the labor market. The second is the question of what humans should prepare for once human labor is completely replaced by machines. Simply put, education to prepare for work and education to prepare for non-work can be proposed simultaneously while predicting the same future society. For the purpose of this study, I first reviewed the recent discussion on job preparation education for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, based on the concept of competency, and the reason why education based on this concept is incompatible with traditional education. Second, in order to clarify the meaning of education as non-work, I compared the concept of competency to education for work in terms of the logical differences between the two. Third, I proposed that rather than creating new education for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, we need to clarify the present value of education, and how we can reconstruct it based on education s original meaning.