🔎Megatrend: Down-Skilling
Academic performances are declining globally. This is happening at the worst possible time because the labor market is becoming more demanding. Managing that mismatch is an opportunity for some.
TLDR Summary
We are at the beginning of the most severe labor market revolution since the 1950s when white-collar salarymen took over. AI will make a small minority of people hyper-productive. But the majority will be left behind. Young people will be bearing the brunt of this. Not because they are too dumb to adapt. But because the education system is failing them. Because we are failing them.
Academic performances in schools and universities are declining in many countries. It's easy to frame that as a pandemic distortion. But there are structural forces at play, too. The decline is fueled by widespread digital addiction, family disintegration and a culture that doesn’t embrace challenges.
Schools and universities will be decreasingly able to supply the labor market with graduates that are fit for work. Many labor-intense businesses will struggle with that. But there will be winners as well.
The global education crisis
A few weeks ago, I had a chat with my son’s elementary school teacher. She mentioned to me that the overall academic performance of her students is down significantly compared to when she started teaching in the 1990s.
That conversation has been bothering me for weeks. I was generally aware that there are issues in the education system and I have had similar conversations with friends and family before. But I hadn’t spent that much time thinking about it.
To be honest, I always thought the most pressing issue is related to mismanaged migration flows and hence it’s a problem for certain overwhelmed communities, not necessarily for our society as a whole. I didn’t think young people would be generally less capable today than in the past. After all, technological progress keeps happening. Most sports continue to see world record progression. The world is becoming more competitive. Humanity keeps advancing.
After spending more time with this topic, I believe rising peak performances are clouding the fact that average performances are declining. And that is a problem for all of us. It forces people more and more into passive roles. It makes the individual more dependent and more vulnerable.
It sounds strong, but I believe it’s an existential threat for us, more so than environmental concerns. Education is the foundation of progress and equitable participation. Democracy can’t function without proper education.
When I started looking into this in more detail, the natural first question was whether the observations of my son’s teacher match broader trends. To assess that, I took a look at the latest 2022 PISA study, the results of which were published in December 2023.
This study shows a clear decline in math, reading and science skills in most countries. The decline accelerated during the pandemic (obviously due to lockdowns), but it seems that results have been trending down for about a decade.
IQ tests support the results suggested in the PISA study. For most of the 20th century, IQ tests were rising in a phenomenon popularized as the Flynn effect. This trend was mostly attributed to a rise in average schooling, growing test familiarity and better nutrition and overall health. The 21st century is showing a Reverse Flynn effect. For example, this paper observed falling IQ test results among US adults between 2006 and 2018.
When I talked to my son’s teacher, she was careful to not speculate too much about the reasons. However, she did highlight that students struggle in particular with emotional control and perseverance. It’s difficult for them to finish tasks.
The public domain is full with attempts to explain the crisis of the education system. Personally, I believe that three reasons stand out.
