The world is at a crossroads today. The industrialised world that we created in the late 1800s with its sets of rules and norms is being challenged by the new paradigms of high population, resource scarcity, economic distortions, digital divide, environmental pollution and cultural isolations.

These challenges confronting human society and the human cognition to these challenges are termed as Metacrisis that predicts that the civilisation is about to transform. The new order will have its own rules, norms and functioning to reflect the realities of the changing time. There are four dimensions to Metacrisis.

The direst form of this crisis is reflected in making a sense of the world. Every day, individuals are bombarded with information from various media sources that is overwhelming human cognitive capabilities. Added to this is a digital world of human habitation that has another unique set of rules. This has the capability to unmoor human cultural and social anchors and create a complete loss of reality in the world.

Even when there is capability to make sense of the world, there lies another crisis of capability to navigate through the social, economic and political problems. This may create dysfunctional societies.

Existing power structures have lost their legitimacy over the years in the eyes of people. Dysfunctional and corrupt governance have eroded the trust of the people, leaving a sense of vacuum. This has given rise to social unrest and sporadic violence in many parts of the world.

There is an increasing lack of sense of purpose, leading to individuals with a diminished sense of morality, ethics and trust. This has given rise to heightened tensions, societal unrest and unnecessary competition among individuals.

The Future of Higher Education

Higher Education traditionally plays the role of preparing the students for a career of their choice. It also helps develop higher-level thinking that would help a student to navigate through the challenges of life. Hence, the role of higher education is critical in shaping the citizens of tomorrow. While primary and secondary education builds values, characters and basic knowledge levels, higher education takes a leap in developing mindsets, intellectual skills and higher-order thinking.

Higher education has been traditionally delivered through classrooms, laboratories and fieldwork, depending on the domain. This pedagogical style had developed over centuries when learning was linear, and sources of information were limited to books and newspapers. Digitalisation and the rise of social media have created a world with information overload, and this has affected human sensemaking.

Adding to this, the new artificial world of social media has the capability of displacing cognition from the traditional societal setting into an unrealistic mental bubble. Once this phenomenon takes place, the individual concerned has a diminished sense of the real world. Education is a panacea for this lack of sensemaking. Programmes with dedicated modules of philosophy, psychology, history and anthropology would instil a sense of human civilisational values and context. Added to this, field visits and sensitisation of human experiences in real societies would also anchor the individual to reality.

Education, besides solving the sensemaking crisis, can also bring about a solution to the capability crisis. The usage of technology to create simulations that mimic real-world issues creates capabilities without the risk of failures with disastrous consequences.

Academia has the responsibility to instil a sense of hierarchy within the minds of students at a very early age. At the higher education level, that may be enforced through the creation of student bodies, clubs and other formal setups with a defined hierarchy. Through these bodies, the students would not only learn hierarchy but be trained in the intricacies of governance.

Higher education programmes should have modules on Ethics, Diversity and Societal Impact to create citizens with a strong moral compass. The institutions should also help and guide students on their mental well-being and define their purpose and career goals.

Debdutta Choudhury is the Associate Dean of Accreditations and Assurance of Learning at Woxsen University.

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