Changing Pattern of Education in the Age of Globalization

Globalisation is the new buzzword that has come to dominate the world since the nineties of the last century with the end of the cold war and the break-up of the former Soviet Union and the global trend towards the rolling ball. The frontiers of the state with increased reliance on the market economy and renewed faith in the private capital and resources, a process of structural adjustment have started in many of the developing countries. It describes the process by which regional economies, societies, and cultures have become integrated through a global network of political ideas through communication, transportation, and trade. Whenever we speak of globalization, we think in terms of its effects in the context of national sovereignty, economic liberalization, social and cultural changes of a particular country. Have we ever thought how globalization has left its impact in the knowledge and education sphere? This paper is an attempt to discuss about the knowledge industry in connection with globalization.
In this regard, it becomes necessary to start with a statement, ‘Knowledge has become a commodity in the realm of globalization’, a commodity that is easily tradable and gaining knowledge has become an easy task. Here it can be argued by saying that knowledge in the form of books was always a commodity and was also used in trading purposes. But was that a yardstick to measure a country’s GDP or an industry by itself, say 10 to 15 years back? In the present scenario knowledge has created its own industry. Moreover, in many cases we find that it is not a compulsion to have a classroom set up to gain knowledge. Rather, technology and advanced information and communication system has provided an important impetus to spread knowledge to a huge mass of people living in different corners of the world.
Some of the common features of education and knowledge in the age of globalization are:
• Information is growing exponentially.
• Learners are over-loaded with knowledge..
• Being up-to-date with knowledge is a challenge.
• Learners are becoming mobile.
• The role of informal learning is gaining momentum.
• Both organizations and individuals are learning organisms.
• Sharing knowledge is easier with modern technologies.
• Knowing how and what is replaced by knowing where and who.

Let us look into some crucial aspects of education and knowledge in the age of globalization.
Knowledge in the Form of an Industry:
Knowledge Processing Outsourcing (popularly known as KPO), calls for the application of specialized domain. It typically involves a component of research and analysis. KPO business entities provide typical domain-based processes, advanced analytical skills and business expertise, leading to high level of specialization, deriving its strength from the depth of knowledge, experience and judgment factor. Here we can sight the Riggsian Model which indicates that the evolution of the society takes place in three stages –
Agrarian – Prismatic – Industria
In the agrarian society, there were no specializations, where one person or institution used to perform a wide range of functions but in the present age having industria society, specilisation is the key term, where each work is divided into various componenets under the supervision of a particular person.
The future of KPO has a high potential as it is not restricted to only Information Technology (IT) or Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) sectors and includes other sectors like Legal Processes, Intellectual Property and Patent related services, Engineering Services, Web Development application, Business Research and Analytics, Clinical Research, Publishing, Market Research, etc. In today's competitive environment, focus is to concentrate on core specialization and core-competency areas and outsource the rest of the activities. Many companies and organizations have come to realize that by outsourcing non-core activities, not only costs are minimized and efficiencies are improved but the total business process improves because the focus shifts to the key growth areas of the business activity.

Scope and Future of KPO
According to a report of National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), the Indian chamber of commerce that serves as an interface to the Indian Software industry, KPO is expected to reach USD 17 billion
by 2010, of which USD 12 billion would be outsourced to India. Another report predicts that India will capture more than 70 percent of the KPO sector by 2011. Apart from India, countries such as Russia, China, the Czech Republic, Ireland, and Israel are also expected to join the KPO industry. So it becomes very evident that this would help India to curtail down the rates of educated unemployed youths and increase its GDP and move ahead in the process of development and nation building. Our education and employment process has been modeled in such a manner that only a section of the educated society manages to get a permanent job in the education sector. KPO provides an opportunity to develop a new job sector.

New Addition to the Learning Theory:
There may be several learning theories, but the most important three are Behaviourism, Cognitivism and Constructivism. Behaviourism focuses only on the objectively observable aspects of learning. Cognitive theories look beyond behavior to explain brain-based learning. And constructivism views learning as a process in which the learner actively constructs or builds new ideas or concepts. Due to the advancement of technologies because of globalization, there is an addition in the number of learning theories and it is currently considered as one of the most important theories. This learning theory of the age of globalization is known as Connectivism. This theory was advocated by George Siemens and Stephen Downes, Connectivism is a theory which emphasises the importance and role of networks and connections between people. Due to the advent of connectivism knowledge sharing has become very easy. Through blogs, Wikipedia, facebook, podcast and other mediums we can share our knowledge with each other in a fraction of a second.
Classroom Learning Replaced by Digital Learning:
Couple of decades back knowledge sharing was mostly confined to the four walls of a classroom or seminar room, or a conference room. Due to the effects of globalization this notion is almost in a process of getting withered away. Now gaining knowledge is not required within a classroom set up only, in the current scenario, one can achieve knowledge digitally.
Thanks to Rajiv Gandhi's doctrines backed by his technical advisor Sam Pitroda, the personal computer arrived in India in the early 1990s. Suddenly we witnessed a flood of computer classes in the metros.
When cable television arrived in the 1990s, enterprising coaching classes set up dedicated channels for distance learning. Then VSAT technology extended this to remote regions. Now it is digital television with service providers beaming educational programs for school children into homes and schools. And that was how ICT (Information and Communications Technology) saw its roots in Indian education.
In recent years we witnessed many radical changes and rapid growth in the education sector. This is due to several factors, and the one factor that needs to be mentioned first is India’s telecom success story. Thanks to extensive telecom coverage and affordable rates, bandwidth and Internet access is available pan India. The Internet offers many free tools for audio-visual instruction. State governments too have got their act together and are joining hands with private solutions providers and NGOs to use ICT for education.
Another driver is the high level of PC penetration among students, especially in the metros, thanks to a significant reduction in hardware costs, and the increased usage of open source applications.

The concept of e-learning is very much in vogue nowadays. E-learning is essentially the computer and network-enabled transfer of skills and knowledge. E-learning applications and processes include Web-based learning, computer-based learning, virtual classroom opportunities and digital collaboration. Content is delivered via the Internet, intranet, audio or video tape, satellite TV, and CD-ROM. Most of the time it is self-paced, and if required it can also be instructor-led. E-learning courses include media in the form of text, image, animation, streaming video and audio. E-learning is another yardstick in the knowledge industry due to globalization. This new domain of the knowledge industry has the ability to make learning more immersive and interesting. Most of the e-learning courses comprises of digitally rich media that helps a learner to understand a concept easily.
Nowadays, different educational institutions are opting for e-learning based curriculums. You can find several universities offering MBA courses, which you can take up from your home.
Thus, it has been seen how education has been tuned in line with globalization and technological advancement. However, this changing pattern of education has both good and bad aspects.
Unlike few decades back, knowledge sharing has become an easy task now. Irrespective of geographical locations, one can share knowledge through blogs, WebX and web conferences. In line with this, it also can be mentioned that knowledge sharing in the above processes will help not only in reducing expenses by arranging seminars, conferences and various gatherings, but also saves the problem of searching the right person who can properly communicate and disseminate knowledge. The e-learning solutions do play a vital role out here, where a trainee can go through his training course without the trainer.
At the same time changing pattern of education also face some challenges. Many people for their business motive do post obscene and adult content over the net, which are not always favourable for age group and category of people. Moreover, in many instances direct interaction of the knowledge givers and takers create a different impact which we miss in web education. Various queries often are raised in our mind which we can solve only in direct in interactive classes.
Another important drawback is our poor economic condition, which obstructs us in covering the entire country digitally. Language barrier is another issue, as it becomes difficult for a large section to understand content in English, as most of the teaching modules are created in English
Thus keeping in mind all the pros and cons of digital and technical learning in the age of globalization, we would try to amalgamate both the process. While the future of education in India looks promising, ICT can certainly help in disseminating educational content, and facilitate remote learning, especially in the Indian context. It can overcome challenges like teacher shortage and student dropout—and bridge the digital divide.

As connectivism focuses on network, it is often referred to as a connective knowledge. Knowledge is distributed over more than one entity. A property of one entity must lead to or become a property of another entity in order to be connected. The knowledge that results from such connections is connective knowledge.