A clarification by Khairudin Aljunied regarding comments on degrees

 Every discipline faces challenges from developments in AI, and to remain employable, students must be agile and open to learning new skills.

From Khairudin Aljunied

I am writing to provide important context regarding FMT’s coverage of my talk at the recent Ilmuwan Malaysia Madani forum titled “Muslim Unity in Times of Geopolitical Crisis”.

The article suggested that I had said “degrees that could become obsolete by the time a student graduates include engineering, humanities and social sciences, as well as science, technology, engineering and mathematics or STEM” and that “students should develop indispensable skills such as in artificial intelligence” aside from “video production and graphic design.”

This summary omitted the core context of my remarks, made during a forum where I spoke at some length on the future of the global economy and its impact on education.

When a young person asked how the university curriculum could be reformed to help them cope with the changing world, I explained that the future of many degree programmes is now in the phase of being obsolete, not in the sense they are no longer relevant, but that these degrees should not be seen as an end in themselves because industries are changing more rapidly than what universities alone can offer students.

At no point am I suggesting that taking a degree in any discipline, especially in the humanities and social sciences, is useless.

I am a historian by training. I also have three children who graduated from the humanities and social sciences, and I give them the same advice I would give any young person.

In truth, all scholars now know that every discipline is challenged by developments in AI and other technologies. To avoid being left behind and to remain employable, students from all fields must embrace agility and openness in picking new skills, sometimes in areas not directly related to their parent degree.

AI is not a be-all and end-all. That applies to degrees as well. Yet change is a constant, and students as well as universities must embrace this change and move ahead in accordance with the demands of the present and the foreseeable future.

I hope this clarifies my position. - FMT

Khairudin Aljunied is a tenured associate professor at the National University of Singapore.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.