[pbhjpbhj]

>What will not be sustainable anymore is a career in education where one gives essentially the same lecture for 30 years but gets paid as if he has created an entirely new lecture every year. //

It will be interesting to see how this affects the development of subjects like mathematics. Without the income from teaching students how will the capitalist system maintain academics in research? Who will pay if education effectively becomes free?

Don't get me wrong. It's fantastic that a brilliant lecturer can now lecture to as many people who choose to watch the video - that's not quite educating them but almost. I see that an institution then can train millions of people using a single good lecturer and a system of auxiliaries, admin staff and what-have-you. But then what of those who were doing [not directly/immediately commercial] research supported by their lecture positions.

[wtallis]

Math is probably the subject least at risk. Every prospective engineer or scientist needs to learn a lot of math, and a significant fraction of those students will be unable to master the subject by simply watching videos. That means that there will always be a significant demand for real, live math teachers.

[chad_oliver]

I'm not sure about that. Certainly the need to learn math will remain reasonably constant, but I think you underestimate the ability of technology. Once we get high quality explanations that remove most bugs before they form, and practice questions that expose problems quickly (it wouldn't be too difficult to design a program to choose which problems each student should be given), and some sort of weak siri-level AI that can watch the student working to discover what they understand ... when all that happens, the demand for maths teachers/tutors will be very low. I suspect that a single qualified teacher could service 400 students.

EDIT to add: the problem with human tutors is that they are inconvenient. It takes time to schedule a tutor, and you can only get help at certain times (that is, during the tutoring session). Human tutors have many advantages, but a program that is merely passable will nevertheless be immensely popular simply because it is convenient.

[pbhjpbhj]

>Every prospective engineer or scientist needs to learn a lot of math, and a significant fraction of those students will be unable to master the subject by simply watching videos. //

One ordinarily learns the maths appropriate to ones course in that department which runs the course.

[thomaslangston]

Agreed. 1-on-1 teaching seems to be very useful to many students especially for math. $20/hr. math tutors fill the tables at my local public library.

[pbhjpbhj]

>$20/hr. math tutors fill the tables at my local public library. //

Do you mean your libraries have classrooms for private tuition? I'm not familiar with this sort of thing. In my country private tuition happens at the tutor or students house.

[thomaslangston]

Nope, we have tables that fill the open spaces. These are first come, first served are available for tutors, project works or studying, or just general reading space.