Higher education is at a critical crossroads in the age of AI and accelerated innovation. The traditional “fast food” curriculum design model—standardised, mass-produced, and rigid—can no longer meet the diverse needs of students, businesses, and society. It’s time for a radical rethinking.
We should move from fast-food McDonaldisation to a Chinese Haidilao Hot Pot approach in education.
Just as Haidilao allows diners to personalise their meals by selecting ingredients that suit their tastes, higher education must offer a customisable curriculum, enabling students to choose “ingredient elements” that align with their passions, career goals, and the complex challenges of the real world.
What does this look like?
1- Personalisation: AI-driven adaptive learning tools can create tailored pathways for students, ensuring they develop skills that matter most to them and their chosen industries.
2- Collaboration with Industry: By partnering with businesses, universities can co-create modules that address immediate real-world problems, from climate change to digital transformation.
3- Flexibility: A modular curriculum allows learners to “pick and mix” elements across disciplines, fostering interdisciplinary thinking and creativity.
4- Relevance: Students aren’t just consumers of knowledge—they become active co-creators, solving pressing societal issues through experiential and project-based learning.
At its core, this transformation empowers students to become agile problem-solvers and lifelong learners. By moving to this hot-pot education model, universities can better serve the needs of a dynamic and unpredictable future while fostering equity, creativity, and relevance.
Let’s embrace this paradigm shift to ensure that higher education remains a space for learning, innovation, and societal impact.
What are your thoughts on this vision for the future of education? I’d love to hear your ideas and insights. Let’s co-create the future together!
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