We live in an increasingly VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world. The advent of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) will just speed up and magnify that impact, especially on our jobs.

LinkedIn estimates that there has been a 36% change in skill sets required for our existing jobs since 2015, and projects that this will increase to 72% by 2030. Without GAI this increase would only be 53%. The World Economic Forum estimates that about 60% of jobs in advanced economies may be impacted by GAI. A Goldman Sachs report found that 300 million jobs around the world stand to be affected by AI and automation.

Jobs ranging from legal services to journalism and finance are all at risk, with those holding professional or graduate qualifications most greatly impacted.

Singapore is a financial and services hub and our only natural resource is an educated workforce. We are therefore at greater risk of obsolescence from the changes that GAI is about to unleash. Given this unprecedented rate of change in the labour landscape, how do we prepare ourselves to be a relevant and productive workforce of the future?

Skills needed

GAI and technology generally will disrupt jobs which involve processing or analysing historical data. Jobs that require human skills like nursing, caregiving and repairmen will be more insulated.

If we are to continue to excel in our knowledge economy, our better educated will need to develop a fresh set of capabilities in areas that GAI is not adept in. These are in the sphere of inter-personal relations, innovation and change. The skill sets that will be prized in the future are likely to be communication, emotional intelligence, creativity, critical thinking, adaptability and decision-making.

Every Singaporean parent dreams of putting their children through university, as a stepping stone to a lucrative career. Just look at the fierce competition for top schools, higher property prices in elite school zones (to increase the chances of securing admission) and the booming education enrichment industry estimated to be worth S$1.4 billion annually in Singapore.

But are our schools preparing children for the working world they will enter?

Singapore prides itself on our global school rankings. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)’s Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) survey of education capabilities announced late last year ranked Singapore at the top for all three categories of mathematics, reading and science. On average, Singaporean students are the equivalent of almost three to five years of schooling ahead of peers, the report said.

This is great news for a knowledge economy like ours but I will bet that GAI will replace a lot of the skills sets we were taught in school on these subjects. Computers will calculate math equations with greater speed and accuracy than the human mind, and will have a larger repository of scientific fact. GAI will be able to process written materials and generate authored content as efficiently as people.

The focus of education needs to move away from imparting facts, to training the brain to process and critically analyse developments, especially in a world where changes will be happening more rapidly. Teaching methods which require students to memorise texts or read copious amounts of material will not give them the head space to create, imagine or think through what they are reading. Understanding towards robust critical analysis, rather than data absorption, should be the goal.

For this reason, I was pleasantly surprised that Singapore’s 15-year-olds came out tops in a global test of creative thinking, beating students from 63 other education systems in the Pisa report released in June this year. It is even more encouraging that the Prime Minister in his National Day Rally speech announced changes to our education system. “Language learning cannot be a tedious exercise of memorising words, idioms or rules,” Mr Wong said. The Minister for Education has also said that the success of our education system goes beyond rankings, and should be defined by the individuals’ desire for lifelong learning.

Parents need to buy in too

It’s a good start but the devil will be in the implementation. Can Singapore’s system be restructured to move away from ranking metrics and allow each individual child their own pathway to success?

And even if it can, will parents get with the programme?  Because teachers cannot do this alone.

As soon as the education ministry announces that year-end testing has been scrapped for a particular cohort, parents will start complaining that their children will not be trained to ace future examinations. Very often the parent who complains about how the schooling system is putting too much pressure on their child is also the one who loads on more tuition sessions on that kid.

As a society, we need to start acknowledging that the learning modalities of the past will not equip our children for the reality of the future. At my law firm, we recognise that legal technology and GAI will replace a lot of the tasks lawyers currently undertake. Our recruitment and talent management now focus more on the areas that GAI cannot beat humans at – complex and creative legal structuring, people skills and critical analysis.

Let’s come back to the suite of skills we need to be future-ready.

To have good communication skills and emotional intelligence, children must have wide networks and the chance to develop inter-personally. Being buried under an avalanche of reading materials and engaging with others principally from behind a device will not achieve that.

Next, creativity. This needs time and head space – for the imagination to run free and inspiration to percolate. Reading, sport and hobbies should be pursued not just for direct school admission purposes. Let’s encourage kids to try new things for the sheer experience of it. I hear that in some schools certain co-curricular activities are available only to those who will represent the school in competition. That needs to change.

Finally, critical thinking, adaptability and decision-making. This needs the lived experience of making mistakes, enduring failure and a system that will allow you to come back armed with the wisdom that the experience has brought you.

We need to overhaul our education system – both from the schools and the parents’ angles.  Anything else would be, for a smart nation, darn stupid.