The Future of Education

In the current knowledge economy, there has been a paradigm shift in managers’ focus from over reliance on physical and structural capital to social and human capital as the most important resources to enhancing value for the organisation. While focusing on human capital, knowledge has been identified as a fundamental resource for achieving and sustaining competitiveness in the global business economy. Therefore, knowledge-based activities, such as knowledge creation, acquisition, management and transfer/sharing are prominent themes in the present knowledge economy. In creating and chatting the path to innovative ways of applying new and existing knowledge, organisational managers understand the role that higher institutions, and their graduates, have to play. However, the current trends of events show that graduate employability is fast falling in Nigeria, as well as in other African countries. The cause of this continuous decline in graduate employability largely rest on existing gaps between what the students are being taught in the higher institutions and what is actually obtainable in the place of work. Existing studies show that the present business education curriculum is not sufficient to prepare graduates for employability, neither does it build in them the required knowledge, skills, and other characteristics that can enable them to fit into the present knowledge driven business economy. This study through an extensive review of the literature explores further the essential factors, design models and institutional supports that can achieve a business education curriculum which will build the right skills set in students, especially in the current knowledge-based economy.  The study concludes that institutional innovation culture, knowledge creation and transfer, motivating knowledge sharing and dynamic teaching models are essential to developing a business education curriculum that reflect the present knowledge economy and build the right work related skills set in African students.

Keywords: Business education, Business education curriculum, Knowledge economy, Higher education institutions, Education in Africa;