SIGNIFICANT ADJUSTMENT ON THE HORIZON NEEDED FOR TERTIARY EDUCATION (MAY 2026)
- communication2193
- 5 days ago
- 1 min read
An innovative new academic study warns that higher education institutions worldwide must urgently reinvent teaching, learning, and curriculum delivery or risk becoming obsolete in the face of rapidly evolving student expectations and technological disruption.
The research paper, “Adapting to the New Frontier: The Transformative Role of Academics in Shaping Higher Education,” published in the Acitya: Journal of Teaching and Education, highlights how the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated a global educational transformation that is now reshaping universities at an unprecedented pace.
Authored by researchers from MANCOSA, the study predicts that by 2029, higher education will primarily serve digitally fluent Generation Z and the incoming Generation Alpha, cohorts whose learning preferences demand highly interactive, technology-driven experiences that traditional universities are not yet prepared to deliver.
“The findings suggest that universities can no longer depend on lecture-heavy, teacher-centred education models. Instead, institutions must adopt immersive technologies, AI-assisted learning, flexible pedagogies, and hybrid physical-virtual learning environments to remain relevant in a rapidly evolving global education landscape,” says Sershan Naidoo, Manager School of Marketing, Communication and Global Tourism at MANCOSA
