Microsoft Asia and IDC Asia/Pacific released findings specific to the education sector for the study, Future Ready Skills: Assessing APAC Education Sector’s Use of AI, where it found that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will help double the rate of innovation improvements for higher education institutions.
With student outcomes being a key performance metric for higher education institutes, many are turning to leverage data to glean insights and drive improved outcomes. “For many institutions, student performance has a direct impact on rankings. AI can be a tool to help better manage outcomes and ensure continued innovation to optimize operations and enhance student engagements, as it reduces resource intensive work among faculty and administrative staff,” said Larry Nelson, Regional General Manager – Education, Microsoft Asia.
“In fact, we found that 3 out 4 education leaders agree that AI will be able to drive competitiveness in the next 3 years. However, only 32% of education institutions in Asia Pacific have embarked on their AI journey,” added Nelson.
Based on the study, the top business drivers for education leaders to adopt AI include better student engagement, higher funding, and accelerated innovation. For institutions that have adopted AI, they are already seeing improvements in the range of 11% to 28% today in areas such as higher funding, accelerated innovation, higher competitiveness, improved efficiency and better student engagement. By 2021, education institutions with AI stand to experience the biggest jump in higher funding, which is expected to increase by 3.7x, higher than most industry sectors in Asia Pacific.
Fig 1: AI improves business today and in three years
Developing a globally engaged citizenry is of utmost importance for all countries and is also one of Japan’s key priorities. However, many students would avoid these opportunities as doing so can delay them from taking the classes they need for graduation. As one of the top universities in Japan serving over 17,000 students, the Faculty of Engineering at Hokkaido University has embarked on its AI journey as part of its mission to encourage students to study abroad.
In a bid to remove this obstacle and contribute to a better abroad experience, the university developed a Microsoft Azure-based e-learning system that enables students to keep up with coursework back home. Leveraging AI and automation capabilities, the system helped the university broaden student access, expand capacity, streamline course prep from days to hours, and enhance security – transforming the abroad learning experience.
“Our Azure-based e-learning system far better meets the needs of our students, who can access courses from PC, Android, iOS, and other devices. This gives them a more enjoyable and convenient educational experience,” said Professor Yukinori Kobayashi, Doctor of Engineering and Director of the Graduate School of Engineering, Hokkaido University.
Asia Pacific’s Education Institutions Need to Focus on its Strategy and Investment, Culture and Data
The Study evaluated six dimensions contributing to the sector’s AI readiness. The educational sector is currently lagging in Data, Strategy and Investment, as well as Culture when compared to Asia Pacific’s overall AI readiness. This signifies that more work needs to be done for these specific areas for educational institutions to remain competitive.
- Data: Education institutions need to work on availability, quality and governance of existing data
Data readiness is a key issue for education institutions. Today, data within higher education institutes is siloed, with limited usage of a cloud platform for scalability. Institutes also face issues with data timeliness and quality from sources, and a lack of governance practices to ensure trust in data usage.
- Strategy and Investment: Education institutions need to evaluate investment allocation to support their AI strategy
For education institutions to reap the benefits of AI, they must have a sound AI strategy in place to help improve their AI readiness. With this, they need to also look at investment strategies that can be allocated to support organization-wide AI efforts.
- Culture: Traits required for AI adoption lacking in education institutions
More than half of the education staff, and nearly half of the education leaders polled believe that cultural traits and behaviors are not pervasive in their organization today. For example, 67% of staff and 46% of education leaders do not agree that staff are empowered to take risks, and act with speed and agility within the institution.
“For education institutions to fully harness the power of AI, they will need to work on developing an AI strategy which can help better integrate AI elements in various areas of the institution. To do so, they will first need to have better data hygiene and work on improving data readiness. Lastly, culture is an important key to help nurture the AI-mindset. Education leaders will need to develop an innovative culture and empower their staff to work in an agile manner,” said Victor Lim, Vice President, Consulting Operations, IDC Asia/Pacific.
AI Skills Required for Future of Educational Sector
Both education leaders and staff in the education sector are equally positive about AI’s impact on jobs. Majority of education leaders (61%) and staff (61%) believe that AI will either help to do their existing jobs better or reduce repetitive tasks. In addition, both are optimistic of the impact AI will bring to their jobs, with 21% of education leaders believing that AI will create new jobs while 13% of staff agreeing so.
Fig 2: Perception of AI’s impact on jobs (Management and Staff)
However, according to education leaders, the skills required for an AI future are in shortage. The top three skills identified to face a shortage of supply in the next three years include:
- IT skills and programming
- Digital skills
- Quantitative, analytical and statistical skills
The Study also noted that there is a disconnect with education leaders’ perception of their staff’s willingness to reskill. Although the education leaders realize that there is an urgent need for reskilling efforts in order to cultivate an AI-ready workforce, they are not fully convinced that their staff are committed to being reskilled. Based on the study, 26% of education leaders felt that workers have no interest to reskill, but only 11% of staff had no interest.
“Education management needs to better understand their staff and prioritize reskilling efforts to address skills shortage. Only then, are they able to bring their respective institutions forward into an AI future, and achieve better student outcomes,” shared Nelson.
Asian Summit on Education and Skills
These key findings were unveiled at the Asian Summit on Education and Skills (ASES) held in Bangalore, India from 22 – 24 September 2019. ASES is a leadership and ministerial event dedicated to the education and skills sector, where Microsoft has been the founding partner for its six editions.
The annual summit convenes education system leaders, policy makers and key education institution representatives from across Asia to discuss challenges and opportunities in policy formulation and implementation in the sector. Hosting various sessions of insight and inspiration led by leading education pioneers and experts discussing industry trends and best practices, ASES is attended by senior ministerial delegations and eminent education leaders from India, and delegates from over 15 countries.
About the study Future Ready Skills: Assessing APAC Education Sector’s Use of AI
- 207 education leaders and 150 education staff from the education sector participated in this study out of 1,605 business leaders and 1,585 workers in total.
- Business leaders: Business and IT leaders from organizations with more than 250 staff were polled. Respondents were decision-makers involved in shaping their organization’s business and digital strategy.
- Workers: Respondents screened have an understanding of Artificial Intelligence today, and do not play a role in decision-making process within their organization.
- 15 Asia Pacific markets were involved: Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
Archive
- October 2024(44)
- September 2024(94)
- August 2024(100)
- July 2024(99)
- June 2024(126)
- May 2024(155)
- April 2024(123)
- March 2024(112)
- February 2024(109)
- January 2024(95)
- December 2023(56)
- November 2023(86)
- October 2023(97)
- September 2023(89)
- August 2023(101)
- July 2023(104)
- June 2023(113)
- May 2023(103)
- April 2023(93)
- March 2023(129)
- February 2023(77)
- January 2023(91)
- December 2022(90)
- November 2022(125)
- October 2022(117)
- September 2022(137)
- August 2022(119)
- July 2022(99)
- June 2022(128)
- May 2022(112)
- April 2022(108)
- March 2022(121)
- February 2022(93)
- January 2022(110)
- December 2021(92)
- November 2021(107)
- October 2021(101)
- September 2021(81)
- August 2021(74)
- July 2021(78)
- June 2021(92)
- May 2021(67)
- April 2021(79)
- March 2021(79)
- February 2021(58)
- January 2021(55)
- December 2020(56)
- November 2020(59)
- October 2020(78)
- September 2020(72)
- August 2020(64)
- July 2020(71)
- June 2020(74)
- May 2020(50)
- April 2020(71)
- March 2020(71)
- February 2020(58)
- January 2020(62)
- December 2019(57)
- November 2019(64)
- October 2019(25)
- September 2019(24)
- August 2019(14)
- July 2019(23)
- June 2019(54)
- May 2019(82)
- April 2019(76)
- March 2019(71)
- February 2019(67)
- January 2019(75)
- December 2018(44)
- November 2018(47)
- October 2018(74)
- September 2018(54)
- August 2018(61)
- July 2018(72)
- June 2018(62)
- May 2018(62)
- April 2018(73)
- March 2018(76)
- February 2018(8)
- January 2018(7)
- December 2017(6)
- November 2017(8)
- October 2017(3)
- September 2017(4)
- August 2017(4)
- July 2017(2)
- June 2017(5)
- May 2017(6)
- April 2017(11)
- March 2017(8)
- February 2017(16)
- January 2017(10)
- December 2016(12)
- November 2016(20)
- October 2016(7)
- September 2016(102)
- August 2016(168)
- July 2016(141)
- June 2016(149)
- May 2016(117)
- April 2016(59)
- March 2016(85)
- February 2016(153)
- December 2015(150)