On the Knowledge-based Economy

I've participated in a forum mounted by Al Etihad, a UAE daily newspaper, in its 17th session held in Abu Dhabi city, which this year dealt with the topic of the knowledge-based economy.

A constellation of writers, thinkers, and researchers participated in that forum.

The great success achieved by countries is based on the knowledge economy and knowledge society, referred to in the twelfth chapter of the book: The Age of Discontinuity by Peter Drucker. Multiple terms are often used to emphasize different aspects of the knowledge economy, including the information society, the digital economy, the network of the new economy, or the knowledge economy and the information revolution.

Previously, land, labor, and capital were the three main factors of production in the ancient economy. Today, the important assets in the new economy are technical knowledge, creativity, intelligence, and information.

Intelligence embodied in computer software and technology across a wide range of products has become more important than capital, materials, or labor.

The United Nations (UN) estimates that knowledge economies now account for 7 percent of the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and are growing at a rate of 10 percent annually.

It is worth noting that, for example, 50 percent of productivity growth in the European Union (EU) is a direct result of the use and production of information and communication technologies ( ICTs).

Early, countries understood that this century is the century of the knowledge economy par excellence, so they invested in its components, succeeded in it, achieved in it, sanctified its principles, and understood the importance of knowledge (of which technology is one of its elements) in the economy until the feature of the twenty-first-century economy became the knowledge-based economy.

Societies of tomorrow will be based on knowledge and its dominance, and education is the most important source of enhancing international competition, especially in the information society, considering that education is the key to entering the era of knowledge and developing communities through a real development of human capital, which is the focus of the educational process, as it means that the knowledge society and economy are linked to the concept of the education community in which everything provides opportunities for the individual, to learn, to know to work and learn to live with others and learn to achieve himself.

If the knowledge economy is based mainly on knowledge as a major driver of economic growth, then this type of economy depends on the availability of information and communication technologies, digital infrastructure, the use of innovation and digitization, the establishment of an open and tolerant society, strong governance, and so on.

And if we want to extent the discussion in the field of education, this is done by optimizing the investment in several factors that are the basis for the success of every educational system: tolerance, early childhood, learning with games, continuous life learning (installing the culture of learning and acquiring cognitive and life skills at all ages and stages), different educational services through compulsory education), the education budget (allocating a large share of state budgets to the education sector each year, in order to provide high-quality educational services that meet the needs of citizens and enhance the state’s march towards a knowledge-based economy), foreseeing the future (by offering future perceptions of the reality of education and the importance of its development and the aspects it requires to be able to be competitive and provide high quality educational outputs in a way that contributes to the sustainability of education), future skills (building an educational system based on the consolidation of 21st century skills through the curriculum, interactive activities and scientific expeditions as well as promoting innovation in the school, the curricula must be adapted in accordance with the requirements of the labor markets in order to keep pace with the state’s plans to transition to the era of the knowledge economy).

This system must provide innovation; care to youth; people with special needs in the educational system; gender balance; digital transformation in education (which aims to create a new learning environment in schools that includes intelligent classes in all schools, distributing tablets to all students, and providing all schools in the country with high-speed 4G networks).

When we talk about the knowledge economy, we understand why, in a rare moment of understanding between Democrats and Republicans, the US Senate passed a bill to allocate significant investments in advanced technology.

The plan allocates more than $170 billion for research and development goals.

This plan allocates $120 billion to the government agency "National Science Foundation" to encourage research in various fields that are considered key, such as artificial intelligence.

The plan also includes $1.5 billion to develop the fifth generation (5G) telecommunications network.

Translated by Ahmed Moamar