Restructuring Education for the Knowledge Society

Education is a major sustainer of our society. Mass education developed to support the social and economic fabric of the industrial society. The stratification of education over the last 300 years has underpinned the production processes, trained the labour and honed capital to generate the wealth that has supported the democracies woven into the fabric of the industrial age.

The knowledge society won't eliminate industrial processes, any more than industrial processes eliminated agrarian processes. It is likely, however, that knowledge will become the prime organiser of our society and that knowledge processes will transform industrial and agrarian processes.

In a knowledge age, education will undergo radical change since the needs of a knowledge society are fundamentally different from the needs of societies of the past. A society organised around knowledge generation is a society organised around an unlimited resource - one that is entirely renewable. Knowledge is the golden egg and an educated population is the goose. Education is the process that keeps the goose in laying condition.

This paper looks at some of the characteristics of knowledge-age learners, employers and societies before suggesting some of the implications for educational delivery.