Perpetuating Broken Systems

Broken systems need to be retired. The education industry has a habit of propping up and repeatedly perpetuating broken systems rather than creating better solutions. I have come to believe that it is in the very DNA of the education sector.

Some examples of this (and potential alternatives) include the leadership search system (succession planning), over-programming (reducing and streamlining), increasing expenses (build for the market, not the institution), scheduling (build around people, not program), tenure (a job for life?), pricing (build for access, not a barrier), and scaling (deliver what and when people want).

Why do we prop-up what is broken? Simple. It benefits the existing structure and organization, not the students and customers it serves. And, it doesn’t work. Many entrepreneurs look at the existing independent education system as another failed enterprise that has failed to adapt to a changing marketplace. Costs are too high, systems are too inflexible, and it is increasingly out of step with where the world is going.

It is time to recreate. I know I am not the first, or most recent, advocate of systems change. I simply come at this problem from a strategic perspective. If you had to draw up the most effective, culture-influencing, accessible first class educational institution in the future, it would look nothing like the traditional models that we herald and perpetuate.