Is the classroom enough?

What first comes to mind when you hear the word “education”?
Most of us imagine a familiar ladder: nursery, school, university and perhaps postgraduate study. We spend around twelve years in classrooms, pass examinations, collect certificates and eventually enter the labour market. This model was designed, a few centuries ago in Germany, for a world in which knowledge changed relatively slowly and careers followed reasonably predictable paths, that world no longer exists.
The combined pressures of polycrisis and artificial intelligence require more than educational reform. They demand a fundamental change in what we believe education is for, when it happens and how it creates value.
The term “polycrisis” first appeared in the work of French thinkers Edgar Morin and Anne-Brigitte Kern in the 1990s. It describes a condition in which several crises do not simply occur at the same time; they interact, reinforce one another and produce consequences greater than the sum of their parts. Historian Adam Tooze later helped bring the concept into contemporary debate.
Consider what our families and learners have experienced in only a few years: Covid-19 global health crisis, learning disruption, inflation, rising living costs, armed conflicts, displacement, climate disasters and rapid technological change. These are not separate chapters; conflict increases energy and food prices. Inflation puts education beyond the reach of poorer families. Climate disasters damage schools and displace communities. Interrupted education then deepens inequality and weakens societies’ ability to handle the next crisis.
The educational consequences are measurable. The World Bank estimates that the proportion of children in lower- and middle-income countries unable to read and understand a simple text by age ten increased from 57.1 per cent in 2019 to approximately 70 per cent in 2022. Unesco now reports that hundreds of millions of school-aged children face educational disruption because of conflict, displacement and other emergencies. This brings us to the most important question: what is education’s “job to be done” or JTBD?
I believe it is the engaging and continuously evolving process of quality learning and teaching knowledge that matters to people, planet and value. “People” means developing character, health, creativity, critical thinking, empathy and the ability to cooperate. “Planet” means learning how human choices affect natural systems and how communities can become more resilient. “Value” means acquiring the capacity to solve real problems, create useful work and contribute to society.
Measured against this purpose, the conventional twelve-year schooling model is becoming obsolete, not because schools or teachers are unnecessary, but because education can no longer be treated as a fixed journey that ends in early adulthood.
The old model is largely linear: Study first, work later and occasionally return for training. The emerging model must be circular: Learn, apply, reflect, unlearn and learn again. Education should accompany people throughout life, moving between classrooms, workplaces, digital platforms, communities and real-world projects.
Artificial intelligence and advanced technologies are making this transition even more urgent. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that one in four jobs worldwide is potentially exposed to generative AI. Its central conclusion, however, is not that machines will simply eliminate employment. In most occupations, AI is more likely to transform tasks, skills and working conditions.
This distinction matters. If AI can retrieve information, draft reports, translate languages, analyse data and generate computer code within seconds, education cannot continue rewarding students mainly for remembering information or reproducing standard answers. Its value must move towards asking better questions, testing evidence, exercising judgement, working ethically with intelligent machines and doing what technology cannot do responsibly by itself.
Some call the possible point at which machine intelligence exceeds human intelligence the “singularity.” Whether or when that point arrives remains uncertain. The educational challenge is already here. When machines can perform more cognitive tasks, human value will depend less on competing with them and more on directing them towards meaningful ends.
This also changes the role of the teacher. A teacher should no longer be viewed mainly as a transmitter of information. Teachers must become designers of learning, mentors of judgement and guardians of intellectual integrity. Their human role becomes more important, not less.
We therefore need education systems that are modular, flexible and resilient. Students should be able to build recognised qualifications over time through shorter learning blocks. Schools should teach financial literacy, AI literacy, media literacy, sustainability, entrepreneurship and emotional resilience alongside strong foundations in language, mathematics, science, history and the arts. Assessment should reward application and original thought, not merely recall. Employers should become learning partners, while universities should remain connected to graduates throughout their careers.
The twelve-year model gave generations a common educational foundation. We should preserve that strength while transitioning from the assumption that one uninterrupted period of schooling can prepare a person for forty or fifty years of unpredictable work and life.
In an age of polycrisis, education must do more than prepare us for the world as it is. As Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib said “prepare your kids for a time that is different than yours”. Learning must give us the curiosity, courage and practical wisdom to keep rebuilding the world as it changes.