Higher education risks becoming obsolete if it does not fully embrace lifelong learning, the head of a leading US university has claimed.

Joseph Aoun, president of Northeastern University, told the?Times Higher Education?Innovation & Impact Summit that lifelong learners made up 74 per cent of learners in the US, and only 34 per cent of universities in the country ¡°fill their seats¡±, but higher education has not yet incorporated lifelong learning as part of its core mission.

¡°We risk becoming obsolete if we don¡¯t do it,¡± he warned, during a keynote address at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).

Professor Aoun compared universities¡¯ inaction to the railway industry in the US responding to the start of the ¡°airline revolution¡± by saying, ¡°this is not my problem, I am in the railway business¡±.

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¡°They were in the transportation business and indeed their business was impacted by that,¡± he said. ¡°Higher education is facing a similar situation. In many countries we have ageing populations, we have a need for lifelong learning, they are the majority and we have not incorporated lifelong learning as part of our core mission. It¡¯s time to do it.¡±

Professor Aoun said that universities needed to ¡°rethink¡± their operations to achieve this goal, including creating customised curricula for companies and individual adult learners who are ¡°long on experience and short on time¡±, and creating certificates that are ¡°stackable¡± as an alternative to degrees.

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¡°Finally the delivery has to be done in such a way that it¡¯s on demand,¡± including online learning and delivery within companies, he said, adding: ¡°Lifelong learning is going to require us to become humble, to listen to the needs of society, of individuals, [and] of organisations.¡±

Lifelong learning was one of three elements that Professor Aoun urged universities to focus on. He also called for institutions to create curricula based on what he termed ¡°humanics¡± ¨C the integration of technological literacy, data literacy and human literacy ¨C and said that this should be combined with experiential learning.

When asked how university leaders could create the impetus to enable these changes, Professor Aoun said that universities ¡°operate based on a consensus model¡±, which meant that they were very slow to change.

But he said that if universities believed in academic freedom and a culture of experimentation and innovation, they should abandon this model and instead ¡°let the early adopters be the pioneers¡± ¨C and that others would follow this lead.

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Professor Aoun also gave a scathing review of the way that liberal arts education has been taught in the US, claiming that it has been ¡°divorced from anything concerning the world¡± and focused too heavily on ¡°being theoretical¡±.

ellie.bothwell@timeshighereducation.com