16 November 2016

Mr Marc Tucker, president and chief executive of the United States’ National Centre on Education and the Economy, who was in Singapore last month on a study visit, said that the drive for “common sense” as a skill set may make a university education a lot less important in the future.

He said that a growing number of employers, particularly technology companies like Google, “now care less and less which university you went to, or even if you went to university”.

Qualities that will be needed by employees in the future economy include the ability to quickly integrate large amounts of information and put it together to produce specific results, the ability to lead and inspire others, be an effective group member, to conceive a project and its goal, and to organise the project to achieve that goal.

The way forward, he said, is an education that allows students to draw on both theory and practice to quickly synthesise new information and solve problems through project-based learning.