We see now a marked contrast to the 20th century education – a contrast with respect to the speed with which the learning is happening; to the growth of learners in their capacity to adopt technology quickly; learners who are capable of expanding their learning horizon with ease with the availability of multi-media and multi-sensory learning options.
We see the two streams of learning, academic and vocational, increasingly becoming dependent on each other as the permeating nature of technologies, though serving each stream differently, are bringing the two streams closer. It may be the combination of an increasing growth of innovative societies spurred by knowledge abundance, ease of access to knowledge and the nature of global connectivity.
We see employability depending on the flexibility and the diversity of the employees and see a necessity for continuous learning to keep the knowledge of the work force current and relevant.
The transformation of knowledge to skills to tools spiraling upwards in the creation of complex knowledge societies is promoting a knowledge-divide now as opposed to the digital-divide that once defined the late 20th century.
In the midst of all this, we need to take a second look at the contribution from research. There is a general consensus that many of the great research works lag behind on actual implementation for many reasons. The knowledge society of the 21st century making breakthroughs, on the knowledge consumption side, by integrating products and services is making the contribution from research either outdated or irrelevant or lonely.
On the construction side, the research studies often take years to complete (e.g., longitudinal), cater to either a specific or a narrow research question, and, often not factor the complex knowledge present outside the sanitized lab conditions. The accumulation of research papers with minor differences and an inability to aggregate research are rendering research ineffective to contribute significantly to the needs of continuous skill development and to the needs of vocational education of the 21st century knowledge societies.
The research and skill integration issues are compounded by the lag effects on both sides of the streams, increasing the risk of survival upon failure and rendering the tools used ineffective and unreliable.
With growing numbers of researchers and research papers, it is important to embrace a model that frames these research studies differently, aiming it from the perspective of creating the skilled societies. The pertinent questions for research studies should, perhaps, revolve around the essential components of a trusted and adaptive knowledge capable of driving the efficiency in efforts and achieving maturity in methods within the shortest amounts of time and with least consumption of resources. The process of integration of research and skills will hasten with the help from ubiquitous technologies of 21st century.
This cannot guarantee that there will be no other gaps between construction or consumption or transformation of knowledge. They may be of other kinds, but can be dealt with the way in which we dealt with the digital-divide once before and doing it now with knowledge-divide.