A Rapidly Changing World and the Dream of Future-Ready Education

The Changing World and the Need for Education

The world is changing at a breakneck pace, and we can barely keep up with imagining it. In India, especially, we’re not grasping the speed at which industries, technology, and markets are transforming. What I’m seeing ten years down the line, India is particularly underestimating right now. We think not much will change, things will stay the same. But trust me, friends, ten years from now, things will be drastically different. The youth will need entirely new skills, which our education system and schools are failing to provide.

Today, even the mind structure of kids has undergone a phenomenal shift. The changing environment, genes, and surroundings are the reasons. Two to three percent of kids are autistic, nine to ten percent have ADHD. I’m not saying this didn’t exist before. It probably did, but today, due to awareness, we’re talking about autism and ADHD. One thing is certain: today’s minds are far more complex.

The Changing Needs of Children

Parents are having kids, but because they’re working, they can’t give them time. Kids are being born to older parents, mothers above thirty-five, which increases the likelihood of autism. Things are changing even more. The way we teach, the way we deal with kids—it's all different now. Beating kids used to be common; today, we can’t even raise a hand. I’m not saying beating was right back then. Beating means punishing a child without understanding them.

Say a kid has ADHD—they’ll be mischievous, unable to sit still. We take out our frustration on them, saying, “Hit them, that’s the only way they’ll learn.” Where’s the justice in that? They need sensory stimulation, which is why they wander. It’s possible that even hitting gives them stimulation, making them needier. Scientifically, this makes sense.

In reality, their problem is something else, and we’re punishing them for it. We need to understand children’s needs and problems, not punish them. We must find ways to meet their specific needs so they can grow in a healthy, balanced way.

Future Education: New Challenges, New Solutions

All in all, everything is changing rapidly. The big question is: how relevant will today’s education and methods be ten years from now? The education we take so seriously today might become obsolete. In the past, learning and calculation were critical skills. Today, we have data storage devices—learning isn’t even required in the same way. Now, you need to know how to retrieve, compare, and analyze data. Calculation isn’t a challenge anymore; technology has made it easy. The real challenge is creating new formulas and solving complex problems.

Whatever humanity does, machines will take over. Content writers and mathematicians were once in demand; now we have AI and software. Whatever’s in high demand, machines learn from data. People do skilled jobs, and machines learn their patterns and replicate them. When the world moves to research, comparison, and analysis, AI will learn that too. Machines are trained on human data. Cooking, cleaning, driving—machines have learned it all.

So, what’s the future? For now, humans can still do research. But I’ve used Grok XAI, and it helped tremendously with research. AI is a tool, a support for humans. Tools like Grok XAI and ChatGPT handle data research for you. Today’s youth need to learn how to use these tools and make them work for them. Some say we shouldn’t learn these tools; I say their productive use is crucial.

Smarto Experiential School: A New Perspective

Schools are still rigid, slow to adopt new ideas. That’s why Life Foundation is working on future-ready education that will still be relevant twenty years from now. Developing such education is tough—it requires deep thought. With the Smarto Experiential School team, we’re trying to create future-oriented education that reaches the common person, the poor.

Why Smarto Experiential School? Because it was my childhood dream. I’m the secretary of Life Foundation and a founding member of Smarto Experiential School. My dream was a school where there’s no divide between rich and poor, where individual differences are understood. I was an autistic child myself, undiagnosed. Recent research showed I have symptoms of autism. Special children have unique needs. We’re “normal,” but kids with ADHD, autism, or dyslexia face stress navigating society’s systems.

That mental stress was part of my childhood too. That’s where the inspiration came from—a school where kids enjoy learning, talk about the future, and gain experiential knowledge. I researched experiential knowledge and started Smarto Experiential School in 2022.

Challenges and Solutions

This is a future-oriented school, but running it is expensive. We’re in a rural area where parents can’t afford fees beyond one or two thousand. We need a low teacher-student ratio, focusing on each child, understanding their individual differences, and providing counseling and practical, experiential education.

Struggle is part of life, and we’re finding ways. We charge justified fees, but even that feels high for some parents. Through Life Foundation, we offer scholarships, CSR funds, and donations. We’re trying to make our school compete with the quality of Finland, China, Australia, and America. We’re far behind, with a long way to go.

We need your support—contribute as much as you can.