What QS is Doing to Promote Education Around the World

Another demonstration of our commitment to increasing the value of education is our participation in the annual Wharton-QS Stars Reimagine Education Awards & Conference. At this event, we recognize those who have come up with innovative ways to deliver education. QS owns and runs the awards on a non-profit basis, in collaboration with The Wharton School, and also contributes $50,000 annually to these awards. More than 1,000 universities and organizations applied for the competition in 2017. Reimagine Education is supported by Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft and many others, with Amazon Web Services being the Premier Sponsor, providing $180,000 in AWS credits for prize winners and EdTech participants.

Past winners have all demonstrated how you can use modern advances to improve learning outcomes. The National Institute for the Deaf, for example, won with its e-learning platform to teach sign language. Its dual-screen featuring visual imagery on one side and corresponding sign language on the other proved engaging and scalable to other languages and applications.

London School of Economics received recognition for its Students as Producers case study. The school had students and professors switch places, so the students presented material and teachers served as facilitators providing the necessary content and tools for teaching. They completely flipped tradition on its side and saw dramatic improvements in student engagement and comprehension of the material.

Sometimes, the winners address the nagging issue of the cost of education, too. Now that schools must keep up with cutting-edge technology to stay relevant, the price of education continues to soar. But Labster offered a solution. This virtual reality laboratory recreated highly expensive scientific and medical equipment that most schools and universities simply cannot afford. In the virtual environment, students and teachers can learn to use the equipment and gain firsthand experience. The community of users can then share notes on the use of the product and its practicality. Thus, Labster reduces the costs and provides greater access to the latest in technology.

In another example, a professor at a university in Taiwan created a video game, PaGamo, that allows teachers to input questions on a game board. By correctly answering these questions, students acquire territory. They compete with fellow students to see who gets the most questions right and thus the most territory. It taps into the modern love of video games, all the while teaching material that might be otherwise difficult to learn and retain. By applying modern technology, educators are improving learning outcomes and greatly impacting education across borders. We’re only at the beginning of this revolution, and QS plans to remain at the forefront of supporting advances to charge forward.

One area where we want to make a difference is addressing employability and the 21^st century skills gap. We survey nearly 50,000 employers for our global rankings. One of the pieces of information we’ve acquired is about the satisfaction of employers with employees fresh out of school. We learn from them about the skills they are still lacking and need to succeed well into the future. And we have this information broken down by country.

We can use our research to identify where the skills gap is widest, the key points for employers, and the kinds of initiatives that might help. In addition, we are introducing two new awards to Reimagine Education. One is for the best employer nurturing 21^st century skills and the other is for the best university-business partnerships. QS feels a responsibility to help universities understand how they can better meet the needs of employers.

Ultimately, everything we do is meant to support the mission of making education more accessible to a larger group of people. We truly believe that education is the key to addressing a slew of societal ills. Rather than stand on the sidelines, QS wants to be a player that provides global-scale solutions through education.

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