PLOTTING PATHWAYS ACROSS TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGES IN BUSINESS EDUCATION: A DESIDERATUM FOR EMPOWERING LEARNERS TO ENGAGE THE WORLD

Abstract

This paper attempted to plot pathways across transformational changes in business education which if followed will certainly empower business education learners to engage the world. To set the tone of the discourse, misconceptions and challenges of ideal business education expectation framework such as issues and challenges posed by curriculum, technology, specialization, professionalization, accreditation, keyboarding, shorthand and teaching students to find work were broadly synthesized. It was clearly revealed that the nature of work has changed because businesses and organizations are transforming in dizzying speed. The changes brought to the workplace include but not limited to the way business communicates, improving business security, keeping business organized, helping in cost management, enabling remote working, etc. It wasshown that the first and second Industrial Revolution brought dramatic changes but these changes cannot be compared to transformations which came with development of digital systems communication and rapid advances of computing power that have accentuatednew ways of generating, processing and sharing information. Yet, these changes are nothing compared to the expected digitization impact on the capabilities of humans and machines which the Forth Industrial Revolution, described as cyber-physical systems, will unleash. The conclusion is that a new kind of training is necessary, a training in basic, intermediate and advanced digital skills needed by business education students for employability in the digital workplace of the future thereby meeting the expected market demand of over 230 million jobs in Sub-Saharan Africa alone. It was recommend among others, that business educators must seize opportunity presented by digitization to leverage on big data, connectivity, and analytics so that the future which reflects the objectives and values of business education discipline can be realized.