PRINCIPAL'S MESSAGE

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

As educators, we continually strive to ready our students for the future and to help them reach their full potential.

But what shape will the future take, and what skills will our students need when holograms, virtual reality and artificial intelligence have transitioned from science fiction to become science fact?

It’s anyone’s guess what the job market of the future will look like. Indeed, some experts forecast that robots of one kind or another could replace 15 to 30 percent of the worldwide workforce by 2030.

So, how can humans compete with the very machines that we are building? Jack Ma, the founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba (cited on Learnfast 2018), thinks that we should shift away from knowledge-based education because ‘we cannot teach our kids to compete with machines.’  Instead, we should refocus on teaching children ‘something unique, so that a machine can never catch up with us.’

Mr Ma said that, rather than knowledge, we should reinforce our humanity by teaching the ‘soft skills’ of ‘values, believing, independent thinking, teamwork and care for others.’

The good news is that, since it was founded, St Joseph’s College has been committed to the development of the student as a whole person within a community. In the Mercy Tradition, we instruct knowledge and impart our core values and virtues to empower our students today, and give them the tools they will need so they can adapt to any future.

Celebrating and honouring our shared humanity in deference to the divine has always been and will always be a part of the educational experience at St Joseph’s College Mildura.

God Bless,

Mrs Marg Blythman