Education that focusses on challenges over disciplines

Context: Moving from a discipline-based approach to a challenge-based approach would be a seismic shift in the whole approach to higher education and research.

Issues with our approach towards higher education:

• Discipline-based approach: Disciplinary immersion and a siloed approach are no longer enough to address the global challenges we face.
• Energy provision, inequality, migration, conflict resolution, and other problems are all global challenges in need of urgent attention, as also our climate emergency and pandemics.
• Reliance on one's discipline can lead to an overly deterministic approach.
• Focused on the Top-down approach: Currently, students' decision on what to study at university is based on aptitudes demonstrated in high school for particular subjects. 
• From a young age, they learn to be discipline-based.

A case for challenge-based research and learning:

• Shifting the focus to challenges: While being inter-disciplinary, it extends the mindset of a researcher to intensively look for the solutions to challenges.
• For, E.g. the challenge of "how to prevent the spread of Ebola in West Africa" was only solved once epidemiologists began to work with anthropologists and religious leaders to understand traditional burial practices.
• A mix of top-down and bottom-up: While challenge-driven research can be top-down, the challenge drive learning can be bottom up
• Children can self-direct themselves, knowing the challenges and will be able to choose their subjects based on those self-identified challenges.
•  For, E.g. Trinity's student accelerator, LaunchBox, enables students to incubate, seed-fund and market business ideas. 

Conclusion: The tipping point for a change will come once employers, at scale, begin to recognize the merits of this new approach, and seek graduates who focus on challenges rather than disciplines.