Schools Fail To Develop Ai-powered Gen Alpha Kids Into Critical Thinkers

Parents, here is the cold, hard truth: the CAPS curriculum our kids are being taught in our schools today is not going to prepare them for a world that is going to look very different when they enter the world of work. It's time we extend the school of life in our homes and beyond the classroom, writes Gasant Abarder in a new SliceofGasant column.

My 7-year-old daughter in Grade 2 brought home a report card with straight 7s after the first term - with glowing comments from her teacher. Her grasp of math is outstanding and she has a great command of both English and Afrikaans. She also has an impressive vocabulary and reads well ahead of her level.

To top it off, she was graded for rhythmic gymnastics the next morning and passed to level 2 with flying colours. She is my 81-year-old mom's go-to person to reformat her phone each time grandma accidentally deletes WhatsApp or locks her pin.

This is Gen Alpha, the generation born from 2010 onwards. Don't get me wrong. I am thrilled. My daughter has a wonderful teacher who knows each child in her class - including their strengths and weaknesses. But I wonder how learning times tables or memorising a reader about Wilf and Chip the 21st-century version of Kathy and Mark prepares her for life when she completes a university degree at around 2040.

By then, technology would have changed the world so drastically that it would be beyond recognition. At the pace artificial intelligence is growing, most of the jobs humans do now will be obsolete by the time my daughter is an adult.