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The most essential skill in today’s time is learnability which is the ability to acquire knowledge efficiently and effectively and use it in a meaningful way over and over again.

The internet and its increasingly wide accessibility, with the high penetration rates of 4G ,5G networks and smart phones in the country, has resulted in knowledge no longer offering the competitive advantage that it once did. It is no longer a differentiator.

Knowledge has become an increasingly ubiquitous commodity, as every information is available a touch away, learnability is increasingly replacing the knowledge in every context, which once was the single most important trait that the younger student need to be inculcated in. In today’s context knowledge is a perishable commodity, what one learns today will be obsolete by a new discovery made tomorrow.

In such a fast pacing era, training children in critical thinking ought to take precedence over spoon feeding them information.

The current education philosophy was designed hundred of years ago for the purpose of retaining knowledge and information. At schools, we feed children information,we expect them to remember that information and test for accuracy at exams. In real, we actually expect our children to become walking encyclopedia memorizing tons of facts and figures. It might have worked in the past because the information once learned was valid over a long period of time but today the older generation is already struggling with the accelerated changes that happen overnight.

While knowledge and the ability to retain that knowledge is by no means completely redundant yet – but the difference between a great career and a mediocre one is often determined by learnability and the skills possessed by the person -not by his knowledge.

In the rapidly changing world, what defines our success is not what we know, but rather, our ability to learn what we don’t know. Being knowledgeable does not imply learnability but the reverse certainly holds true. One could make a child knowledgeable in a chosen field by feeding her a ton of relevant information; but she may not know how to acquire a new knowledge independently.

This is the high time, we need to look for an education methodology that gives importance to developing creative abilities and skills for practical life over drilling in knowledge. our educational philosophy should priorities learnability, creativity and skill development.

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