Question

One key role for the public sector is educating the nation’s children to prepare them for a productive life. Answer the following questions in regard to the country’s educational endeavors:

A. Explain the role that education plays in preparing students for the information economy.

B. How does the information economy differ from the nation’s agricultural and industrial economies of the past?

C. Is the nation’s educational system meeting the demands of the new information economy, if so why? If not, why is the system failing?

D. How will the success of our educational system affect the economy and quality of life in the future? Explain.

Answer 1

A.   The role of education especially primary education in the overall development of a nation is very significant. Primary education is the begining stage of learning when children aquires knowledge about history and geography of their nation. Students in their school study period are imparted key insights of the information economy. Such knowledge helps students in their future study programmes, With the technology advancement, many changes have also taken place in education especially in study curriculum, teaching methodology and examination patterns. Now conventional teaching methodology has been replaced with computers in many schools. After successful completion of the primary education, children begins their higher study and acquires specific skills and education, necessary for their career development and growth.

B.- Information economy is the economy, which heavily focusses on information goods and services such as digital devices, telecommunication, insurance and mutual fund services etc. Agricultural and manufacturing sectors are low profiles in an information economy. The history of information economy began in 1969, when global economy has transformed from traditional agragarian and industrial economy to knowledge economy, Emergence of information services and goods has been not limited to information technology only but also to mental activities in production, warehousing, distribution and marketing. Advancement in the knowledge sector such as telecommunication services, digital computing has considerably reduced the costs of communication services and other related services. The growth of information economy worldwide also resulted in growth of services that require mental intelligence or skills such as research services ( agricultural research, space research, quality and control). Before advent of Knowledge economy, many of the world economies were either agricultural or industrial based. In conventional agricultural and industrial economy, land, labor and capital has been very crucial. But in information economy capital is more important than labor and land and knowledge services constitute bulk of the gross GDP.

C- Education system in developing economies such as India is still traditional that do not adequately impart requisite education and skills necessary for the career of the students. In a knowledge economy, production, banking, agriculture sectors heavily uses cost efficient technologies such as machine intelligence, hybrid technology, robotics, cloud computing that significantly reduce the need of workers in many fields but at the same time, creates demands for skilled persons in emerging knowledge based fields.   Therefore, government should take active role in restructuring educational system and introduce new courses that impart knowledge and skills to the individuals as per the present industry demand in an knowledge dominant economy.

D- Structured and balanced education system in an economy plays significant role in economic growth. It helps people in acquiring basic education and skills which are necessary for getting jobs in industry. There has been growiing emphasis on cost efficient methodologies in different sectors and therefore, deficiencies in the present education system in areas of building infrastructures, fee structures, teaching faculty, learning devices etc should be removed. Successful education system helps people in getting jobs in various sectors that raises employment growth rate, industrial output, market demand, people's purchasing power in an economy. With high employment growth, people can have more money for investment and expenditure that raises the life standard of the people.