By Carla Aerts, interdisciplinary thinker and practitioner on the futures of learning and education.
When AI can produce answers instantly and information is universally accessible, what does it actually mean to be educated in 2025? And in this shifting environment, does a traditional degree still guarantee opportunities in the workplace?
In conversations around education and AI, I often draw on my experiences working across academia and innovation with educators, policy makers, and innovators. My perspective is rooted in years of observing and researching how students learn, how universities evolve, and how the workplace transforms.
The University-Workplace Divide
Many students move through their studies successfully, yet arrive in the workplace uncertain about how to operate, collaborate, and apply their knowledge outside structured academic environments. Too often, universities equip learners to pass degrees, not to navigate reality. This creates a disconnect: highly capable graduates, left to figure out on their own how to transfer theoretical skills into practical settings.
This is not a failure of students and not because of personal inadequacy, but it is a sign that educational models have not adapted to societal and workplace needs. Universities must move beyond exam-driven learning and begin cultivating workplace-relevant capacities such as collaboration, self-directed learning, and knowledge application outside academic settings.
Online Platforms: Supplement or Replacement?
Online platforms are delivering targeted learning at unprecedented speed. They respond to emerging skills needs much faster than traditional accreditation cycles allow. At present, these tools complement universities but are not yet replacements.
However, if industry eventually recognises platform-based credentials on equal footing with degrees, universities will face real competition. The need for reform is immediate: faster programme development, modular learning pathways, and recognition that education must extend beyond the diploma.
The Case for Humanities in a STEM-Dominated Era
As society rushes toward data science, engineering, and automation, humanities risk being sidelined. Technical efficiency without ethical reflection is dangerous. Disciplines such as history, literature, and philosophy foster reasoning, contextual understanding, analytical thinking, and judgement. These skills are all necessary for responsible technological development and human-centric decision-making. Rather than maintaining a rigid STEM vs. humanities divide, universities should encourage interdisciplinary learning where future engineers engage with ethics, and future policy-makers understand data.
Information Is Everywhere… But Knowledge Is Not
AI tools provide information in a fast, abundant, and often convincing way. But gathering information is not the same as understanding it. Knowledge emerges when humans analyse, question, synthesise, and interpret. The real gap is not in data access but in cognitive readiness. Students are not being adequately taught how to learn — only what to learn, often in service of passing exams. Students are taught to master content. This is especially problematic because jobs are changing rapidly, and the line between education and work has blurred. The essential competencies of the future include metacognition, critical thinking, self-regulation, and the ability to deal with uncertainty and evaluate the validity of information. These are the skills that turn raw data into insight.
The Most Important Skill: Critical Dialogue
Out of all the competencies for the future workplace, one is essential: critical dialogue, meaning the ability to think deeply, engage thoughtfully, ask better questions, and communicate meaningfully with both humans and machines. This requires practice: debating, exchanging viewpoints, exposing oneself to different models of AI instead of relying on one tool. The future workforce must be able to challenge outputs, not simply accept them. This is the foundation of ethical reasoning, innovation, and human agency in an age of algorithmically mediated information. Honing these skills — together with reflective and adaptable mindsets — will enable today’s students to develop the agency needed to tackle the problems of tomorrow.
Student Reflection: Experiencing Education from the Inside
Written by Aya Achkar, a current university student at Rotterdam School of Management responding to these themes
As a student navigating today’s university system, much of what is described here feels familiar. Success is measured by grades, completion, and compliance with academic standards. It sometimes feels like the goal is not learning itself, but meeting evaluation criteria.
Outside the classroom, work expectations are different: collaboration, critical decision-making, initiative, adaptability. Yet these capacities are rarely taught intentionally. When AI tools are used, many students rely on them without clear guidance. They are sometimes used as shortcuts to finish an assignment or project faster, rather than as instruments for thinking.
However, many students want to engage more deeply with learning by challenging ideas, questioning outputs, and integrating their perspectives. But the structure of education doesn’t always make space for it. If universities fostered more dialogue, more interdisciplinary exchange, and more emphasis on how to learn rather than what to memorise, students would feel better prepared to enter a rapidly evolving world.
Hence, the role of education is not simply to deliver knowledge, but to prepare thinkers and doers. AI will accelerate access to information, but it cannot replace human reasoning, judgement, or ethical awareness. The next era of education must nurture these qualities without having the risk of losing them.
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To learn more about the evidence and practical models behind these ideas, listen to the full discussion in Episode 5 of the Work Rewired podcast.