The South African Civil Society Information Service

Are Video Games the Future of Education?

24 May 2012

Speaking at this year's "Ideas Economy" on innovation in Berkeley, California, Navin Jain, founder of the World Innovation Institute, argues,  "The fundamental problem we need to solve is that our education system was designed for the industrial era, where you learnt certain skills and worked on that for the rest of your life. Today with exponentially growing technologies, every skill that you learn becomes obsolete in 5-10 years. It's not about learning the skills, it's about learning to learn and we have to fundamentally redesign our education system if we are to go on changing."

In terms of identifying new methods of learning, Jain argues that it's entirely possible to develop a video game "that will be as effective as a private tutor and probably more engaging than the most addictive video game."

Editor's Note: For a more in-depth exposition on the subject of "changing paradigms in education", you might also be interested in this superb 2010 talk by Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert, which has been graphically animated by the UK-based RSA Animate team. In this gripping talk, Robinson also argues that we need to move away from the industrial model of education.

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