Experts warn that education systems must change in the age of AI

Rows of desks and timed tests once suited factory-age education systems, yet teenagers now share classes with chatbots that can summarize a chapter in seconds.

In addition, one in seven adolescents worldwide lives with a mental disorder, a signal that the old setup is creaking under modern pressure.

The job picture is shifting just as fast, with employers predicting 69 million new roles and 83 million losses within five years, a net fall that exposes how blunt academic rankings have become.

The warning comes from education researchers Yong Zhao of the University of Kansas and RuoJun Zhong of YEE Education, whose June 19, 2025 paper argues that schools must abandon a winner‑takes‑all mindset or risk leaving graduates ill‑equipped for a world that operates on partnerships.

Why education systems struggle

“Meritocracy turns education into a race,” Zhao and Zhong state. Meritocracy once promised fairness, yet it often masks how money, networks, and geography load the dice before the first quiz is graded.

Competitive stress is tangible, and the U.S. Surgeon General has linked heavy social‑media comparison culture to rising youth anxiety.

Teamwork matters more than winning

“Excellence in the age of interdependence is not about being better than others. It is about becoming better with others,” explain Zhao and Zhong.

They swap the track‑meet metaphor for human interdependence, a frame that values shared strength over solo wins. 

Evidence for this shift is visible outside school walls, where 64 million Americans earned pay through freelance work in 2023, trading standardized résumés for niche expertise.

Co‑agency asks students to work with tools powered by artificial intelligence, not against them.

Large language models have already met or cleared the passing bar on parts of the U.S. Medical Licensing Exam, proof that rote recall is now cheap silicon labor.

When algorithms handle routine analysis, classrooms can pivot toward creativity, ethics, and empathy, talents a chatbot cannot reliably fake.

Education systems focused on strengths

Uniform syllabi give way to interest‑driven routes that honor each learner’s jagged profile of strengths.

Personal growth, social contribution, and wellbeing replace class rank, turning the report card into a portfolio rather than a scoreboard.

Research on team performance shows that psychological safety, not constant ranking, drives collaboration and deeper understanding.

Zhao and Zhong outline practical steps: mixed‑age studios, community projects, and assessments that ask what value a student created for others.

When learning works best

When students work on problems they care about, learning becomes internalized. They stop asking what will be on the test and start asking how their strengths can improve someone else’s life.

Zhao and Zhong argue that real engagement happens when learners find problems that matter to them and that also have social or environmental relevance.

These challenges draw out personal gifts while pushing students to think about others, anchoring them in shared responsibility.

Skills matter more than college degrees

Employers are steadily moving away from requiring four-year degrees for most roles. In 2024, over half of U.S. job postings no longer asked for formal education credentials, favoring proven skills instead.

State governments are following suit. In early 2024, Massachusetts removed degree requirements for most public jobs, and Minnesota had already done the same for 75% of its roles the year prior. This shift signals that what a person can do is finally outweighing where they went to school.

The push toward interdependence only works if differences are seen as assets, not problems. Research shows that teams with diverse skills, backgrounds, and thinking styles outperform more uniform groups on creative and analytical tasks.

Cognitive diversity isn’t just a social value, it’s an economic advantage. McKinsey found that companies in the top quartile for diverse leadership were 25% more likely to have above-average profitability.

Education systems can prepare students

Teachers become coaches who curate real‑world problems, then step back while learners form teams around their individual talents.

Policymakers can help by dialing down high‑stakes testing, freeing hours for the messy work of project design and reflection.

The authors frame their model as preparation for a labor market where collaboration beats competition and where empathy can earn as much as code.

If education accepts that premise, tomorrow’s graduates may see classmates not as obstacles but as essential partners in a shared experiment.

The study is published in ECNU Review of Education.

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