As a result, education is increasingly becoming a lifelong activity. Businesses are now looking for employees who are prepared to continue learning and who recognize that maintaining their human capital will require persistent hard work and flexibility. The press for lifelong learning and the availability of technology have spawned a variety of education initiatives outside the traditional classroom. These are just the newest in a series of attempts to move learning closer to workers on the job and to make it more relevant to changing business needs. Although many of these new programs focus on specific, applied skill training, some degree-granting programs already exist, and companies that have successfully developed interactive educational software for the classroom are looking to move it online.
Competition is the necessary driving force toward delivering a superior product or service.
We should not shy away from it. Colleges and universities are being challenged to evaluate how new information technologies can best be employed in their curricula and their delivery systems. Beyond these more practical issues, the most significant challenge facing our universities is to ensure that teaching and research continue to unleash the creative intellectual energy that drives our system forward. As the conceptual share of the value added in our economic processes continues to grow, the ability to think abstractly will be increasingly important across a broad range of professions. Critical awareness and the abilities to hypothesize, to interpret, and to communicate are essential elements of successful innovation in a conceptual-based economy.