- Countries such as China, Japan, India, Singapore and Australia are strengthening the AI and digital literacy skills of students by introducing coding in school curriculums.
- Teachers are being given advanced training in coding and artificial intelligence to keep pace with the rising demand for trained professionals.
- Aside from the initiatives introduced by the governments in these regions, there is heavy dependence on the private sector to speed and scale upskilling and reskilling.
The Digital Governance Report by the swissnex Network is a combined study on some of the pressing technology and governance challenges in the APAC region, and the innovative solutions being adopted by its public and private sectors.
The widespread application of artificial intelligence by businesses and public sector alike organisations has led to dynamic shifts in the labour market, leading to redundant jobs and a shortage of talent.
Artificial intelligence has and will continue to redefine the nature of work in the future. To keep up with the demands created by this change, economies around the world will have to upskill the existing workforce as well as train new professionals to enter the workforce.
This has led to many government led reforms in the education sector, especially in the APAC region, which is set to emerge as a global leader in artificial intelligence. Countries such as China, Japan, India, Singapore and Australia are strengthening the AI and digital literacy skills of students by introducing coding in school curriculums. For example, India’s ‘New Education Policy’ has introduced topics such as Robotics, Internet of Things and Big Data for students in grades 8, 9 and 10. At the same time, teachers are being given advanced training in coding and artificial intelligence to keep pace with the rising demand for trained professionals.
Similar attempts have been made to reform higher and tertiary levels of education. In Japan, for instance, data literacy is being encouraged across all university programs with the intent of producing at least 2000 trained data scientists annually. South Korea went a step further in 2019 by designating five of its universities as AI-specialised graduate schools.
Aside from the initiatives introduced by the governments in these regions, there is heavy dependence on the private sector to speed and scale up skilling and reskilling. A classic example of public-private partnership in scaling up AI education would be the Skills Ignition SG programme, jointly conducted by the government of Singapore and Google, to train entry and mid-level job seekers in skills such as digital marketing and cloud computing.
To gain further insights on the radical initiatives being undertaken in the APAC region to introduce and scale up AI literacy, read our full report.
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