The advent of the digital revolution has rapidly transformed every aspect of our lives over the course of a single generation. As little as two decades ago, research for a school assignment involved wading through alphabetised volumes in dusty libraries that more often than not contained information that was outdated before it was printed and bound. The very idea of looking for information in a printed book is something  that is completely foreign to the vast majority of the millennial generation.

Today’s young people have grown up in a world where indexed, current and varied information is available on any topic imaginable, all of the time. Young people look to a multitude of mediums to learn new skills and augment the more ‘traditional’ instruction provided by the formal schooling system with YouTube tutorials, social media feeds, apps and web-based sources to name a few. We, therefore, cannot expect our children to learn in the same way that we did – and yet many classrooms across South Africa look the same as they did 20 and sometimes even 50 years ago.

The primary mandate of the education sector is to equip young people with the skills needed to survive and thrive in the world of work. It is my assertion that paper and blackboard-based education fails to prepare young people for the workplace, where smarter working processes, integrated systems and, more recently, artificial intelligence is the order of the day. Bridging the gap between how we were taught at school and university in the past and how we are expected to function in the modern working environment poses a challenge for a multitude of professionals. This shift is perhaps even more daunting for a sector that remains notoriously invested in tradition over progress.

In the business world, the rapid development of the Internet of Things has given rise to the Smart Office -where collaborative technology and innovative AV solutions are used to make the physical work environment responsive and adaptive to workflows. The introduction of the Smart Office concept has consistently proven to not only improve productivity but also improve workplace satisfaction. Why would we not extend this philosophy to our classrooms, so that our children are able to learn more effectively while enjoying school?

The importance of bringing our formal education sector in fine with the digital age is beyond dispute. How to effectively deploy these solutions in all schools, be they privately or state-funded, remains a challenge. In my opinion, professionals in the AV industry are uniquely positioned to assist in this regard. One of the greatest stumbling blocks in the effective adoption of new technology for teaching and learning remains a lack of understanding among those in decision making positions. The work being done by professionals in the ProAV industry remains key in educating the educators about a whole new world of possibilities that could prove the make or break of education in South Africa in the years to come.

Unfortunately, the adoption of technology for the learning environment has been slow at best in South Africa. However, there are a number of schools and institutions of higher learning that are starting to invest in modern AV technology for their classrooms and lecture halls. In the pages that follow, we will look at a few examples of how AV solutions have been implemented to improve the learning environment at some of the leading international and local universities. I hope that you find this feature informative and, as always, we invite you to contact us about interesting projects that you or your clients may be working on in the education sector.