Inovation in Education

One of the most defining characteristics of a successful organization and/or business is its ability to be innovative. Innovation in today’s business world is key in order to stay relevant in an industry and to remain attractive to constituents. Innovation though, looks different in every industry. If its the technology industry, like Apple, constant inventing of new technological ideas, such as the iPhone, is a necessity to hold the lead in the industry and strongly retain consumer base. However, when an organization is no longer innovative, they slowly become irrelevant as the industry evolves.

As our world becomes smaller, and the pace of globalization continues to rapidly increase, will the American education system need to take an innovative step to make sure that their students remain relevant in the global workforce? As globalization continues to rapidly grow, business and organizational operations becomes more and more internationally flat. An organization’s opportunities are likely to be taken on by another country, which naturally brings people together from different countries. However, with out prior experience working outside of ones cultural norms, these individuals will be ill prepared for the task at hand. As organization’s operations become more globalized, a student’s skill set should not only be what they learned from their english, math, political science, and/or communication majors. A new skill will become necessary to remained relevant, cultural intelligence.

This skill set is not one currently largely provided across the American education system. Although some universities have begun to implement study abroad opportunities into their universities, they are only a sliver of higher education. A New YorkTimes article recently reported that 10% of American students studied abroad in 2012, which was a 3% increase from the prior year. Most universities have study abroad as an option and not a requirement. For education to remain relevant, will a level of cultural intelligence training be required?

For universities like the University of Denver and the University of San Diego (my alma mater), who are ranked in the International Institutes of Education’s topten institutions for study abroad participation, this idea of innovative education that I posed has already been implemented. For the American education system to ensure that its students can learn the necessary cultural intelligence, universities should begin requiring its students to have an abroad experience, those keeping them relevant and competitive in the rapidly growing global work force.

Other articles used: 

Harvard Business Review