The fourth industrial revolution reconsidered: On advancing cosmopolitan education

Abstract

Since Klaus Schwab's (2016) phenomenal book, The Fourth Industrial Revolution, commonly depicted as 4IR, the concept has significantly altered the multiple ways universities in (South) Africa look at or aim to address their institutional practices, most notably, teaching and learning encounters. Schwab's (2016, 7) reference to a "new technology" revolution that would transform the way humans interact in the world today is inspired by "emerging technology breakthroughs, covering wide-ranging fields such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, the internet of things (IoT), autonomous vehicles, 3D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials science, energy storage and quantum computing". In this leading article, we offer an argument in defence of prioritising what we refer to as the cosmopolitan human condition if any meaningful sense were to be made of what Schwab (2016, 7) refers to as the amplification of "fusion of technologies across the physical, digital and biological worlds". In reference to our understandings of university teaching and learning, we give an account of how such encounters ought to be looked at in light of the new fusion of technology idea-that is, 4IR.

Considerations on the Implications of the Internet of Things in Spanish Universities: The Usefulness Perceived by Professors

“…The first two decades of the 21st century have witnessed unparalleled development in the field of communications and technology [1]. The globalization of commercial transactions, the flow of people and the rise of the well-known Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), has conceived a new relational paradigm of interaction between humans and objects [2,3].…”

The fourth industrial revolution and the future of entrepreneurial university in South Africa

“…It is held by Waghid, Waghid and Waghid (2019) that despite the use of the internet by HEIs in South Africa, some academics are unfortunately still 'left behind' in the use of technology in their area of activities; this assertion is evident in the manner in which academic institutions have responded to the previous revolution on how to prepare students for the skills required to meet demand (Waghid et al 2019). It is anticipated that most skills being taught by HEIs, according to the Future of Jobs report (2016), will no longer be relevant in the 4IR dispensation, and this has continued to put institutions under intense pressure in remaining relevant in providing those skills required in preparing students to acquire proficiencies in areas where digital skills are necessary (Waghid et al 2019). Therefore, in anticipation of the disruption 4IR could bring to higher education, the South African government has developed a policy to assist academic institutions in having adequate internet access through the National Development Plan (2011).…”

Do benevolent and altruistic supervisors have higher postgraduate supervision throughput? The contributions of individual motivational values to South African postgraduate supervision throughput

“…This article therefore seeks to extend previous work on student-supervisor relationships (Waghid 2006;Hodza 2007), on cultural aspects of postgraduate supervision (Manidis 2016), and on the intrinsic characteristics of supervisors (Callaghan 2018) to provide empirical evidence of which individual values drive supervision throughput in this context. The contribution of this work may be particularly important in order to fully harness the postgraduate supervision opportunities offered by the new educational technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Waghid, Waghid and Waghid 2019).…”