The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. Agree or Disagree?

We live in a fast paced world of changing technology. A new phone becomes obsolete within 6 months and people will adapt new technology. This time frame will continue to decrease. Everyone will have to follow a learning cycle where they can learn, unlearn and relearn.

Back in the days, people who were unable to read and write were called illiterate. With everyone being educated, this definition is changing in the developed countries and percolating amongst literate.  There is a paradigm shift in the requirements of the employers. Employers expect employees to transform and adapt themselves techniques easily. Some methods will be out-of-date thus people have to unlearn them and learn to new and better methods. They have keep relearning it till a change is needed.

Take my example for instance, the subject accounting is often updated with new and better techniques of accounting. While studying accounting at university, we had to unlearn the methods to prepare a Balance Sheet and Profit and Loss Sheet taught in Year 1 as new techniques were introduced. In Year 3, we had to learn new techniques. If we did not unlearn the old technique we would have failed our exams.

To sum up, people who cannot follow this cycle of learning will be considered illiterate and slow. Increasingly, more people are attending universities at the later stage of their life. In this way they keep updated, employable and develop skills of learning cycle which will be eventually required in all aspects of life.