Tech leads the way in education for upcoming BETT Asia Summit

According to a report by the US Department of Labour, 65% of students today are studying for jobs that don’t exist yet. In today’s cloud-based, social-media driven, Internet obsessed age, new occupations like social media managers, big data analysts, game developers and more are becoming are becoming lucrative alternatives to traditionally stable occupations like medicine, law and the like. Technology has also made some jobs completely obsolete – the switchboard operator, the typist and the telegraph operator – all of them have gone the way of the dodo and with the march of technology and time, may likely edge out more jobs once considered as unassailably essential.

Panel Session: Education for Global Citizenship” featuring Ms Tricia Thorlby, Director, English Language Teacher Development Project (ELTDP), British Council; Sumitra Nair, Director – Youth, Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC); Ridwan Othman, Vice President, Taylors Education Group; Vivek Puthucode, ‎General Manager – Public Sector APAC at Microsoft; Andrew Dalton, Chairperson, The Association of International Malaysian Schools (AIMS)

To that end, educationists the world over have been racking their heads on integrating technology into education, both to make process of imparting knowledge more effective and improving the quality of it too which is what the upcoming BETT Asia Leadership Summit and Expo is about. Formerly known as the British Education Training and Technology show, BETT Asia is a show that’s focused on education technology. Essentially, it’s a summit about the tech and the techniques that help teachers and countries teach students in a better, more effective fashion.

Post-event Q&A session featuring Dato’ P. Kamalanathan, Deputy Minister of Higher Education; Richard Graham MP, UK Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy to Malaysia; and H.E. Vicki Treadell CMG MVO, British High Commissioner to Malaysia

Taking place on 15 and 16 November at the Putra World Trade Center in Kuala Lumpur, the conference is interesting, not just for educationists but for those on the sidelines as well as it sees policy and decision makers debate and discuss on the quality and state of education as well as ways to improve it. For 2016, the theme for BETT Asia will be ‘Educating for Global Citizenship’ and is expected to see some 1,400 attendees and 60 exhibitors covering the gamut of education systems in the region. This is the first time Bett has been held in Malaysia.

At a recent press conference, H.E. Vicki Treadell CMG MVO, British High Commissioner to Malaysia said “BETT Asia Leadership Summit in Malaysia augurs well with our Education is GREAT campaign which was launched in Malaysia earlier this year and will be rolled out to the wider ASEAN region. It is also timely as the Ninth ASEAN Education Ministers meeting, chaired by Malaysia this year, has agreed to adopt the ASEAN Work Plan on Education 2016-2020. Education will continue to be a key theme for the UK’s engagement with Malaysia and ASEAN. The UK is pleased to be part of that and eager to be a partner of choice in the delivery of education across the region.”

A host of major concerns are supporting the initiative, including the British High Commission, Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), the Performance Management & Delivery Unit (PEMANDU), Microsoft and more. To find out more about BETT, swing by asia.bettshow.com