Spotlight: Think out of the box

As the economies of the world evolve and job markets continue to revolve around the economies along with the emergence of technology the shift of focus is now toward grooming the college or university candidates to fit into the market.

Meanwhile, it is also being an accepted fact that during a person’s career journey he or she might make a few career changes. As the saying goes it is the survival of the fittest. Accordingly,  professors are also making the shifts in the teaching methods. More and more lecturers and professors are utilising social media as educational tools.

TRADITIONAL VIEW

According to Professor Ashley Braganza, Deputy Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor for Organisational Transformation at Brunal University, “Education is changing. It is very important that students understand concepts, theories which is more of a traditional view but those who know to apply those theories in practice and what that means in the world of work whether they are working in the government or private sector, charity sector or even become entrepreneurs there are decisions they have to take in the practical world in the real world sense and they should

be able to draw on their education what they gain for the universities through their programs.”

Eventually the career path is based on many decisions from the onset of the choosing the major to specialise and knowing whether it fits the needs and requirements of the job market. So what happens to the subjects that could have been identified as the ones a student had an aptitude for? In Oman the field — ‘education’ continues to be the favourite major amongst students especially female students followed by majors in the health sector. As some of the fields begin to get saturated may be it is time to think out of the box.

An Omani Associate Professor who has been teaching his students with the latest methodology of using social media as an educational tool has been finding success. Assistant Professor Hafedh Shihi explained that the Oman statistics when it came to social media at a recent conference held on the future of higher education, “Social media users have grown by over 600,000 since January

2017. By January 2018, out of 2.6 million social media users of the total population, 1 million were insta users.” He added that the education in the next ten years will become experimental more focused on student being able to gain employable skills while in school. His student assignments even get feedback from other professionals because they are interacting on the social media.

Prof Yusra Mouzughi, Vice Chancellor of Muscat University said the higher education is expected to play more impact in the role of helping students ease into the workforce in a meaningful way. “For example at the Muscat University we are dedicating a whole year for placing them so the students gain skills that cannot be taught in a university or college environment. I think that is very critical because the common issue the employers express is that the students have the degree but not necessarily the skills competency to launch into a career path. “There is a national initiative

to move toward a more consistent approach to applying education. There is a good movement,” she noted.

All the indicators suggest that jobs of the next 20 years will be completely different from what we have been commonly used to. “In the last 25 years is equivalent to 200 years of jump in history because of the development in technology so sticking to math and sciences may not be sufficient. There is huge number of opportunities such as data mine, intelligent use of technology and even within the applied sciences. The important thing is that graduates must accept to be lifelong learners. It is not about getting a degree and sticking to one job for rest of your life. They have to learn to adapt to changing environment and continue to learn,” she concluded.