Do you remember Malcolm Gladwell example of 10,000 hours from the Outliers book. What makes you a great master, a top professional? Talent? Nope. You need to practice 10,000 hours and you become one, think about The Beatels, Bill Gates or top pianists.

There is a debate going on whether it is true or not, see this study for example.

But irrespectively of the scientific debate, people seem to believe in a magic of 10,000 practice hours. Now think about the education. We can assume that K-12 education is about forming a rational citizen, a person that can function in the 21st century complicated world. Right? But college/university education is a different story, higher education establishment should form a specialist, prepare one to become successful on the labor market, a lawyer, marketer, engineer, economist, bankster. Let’s take an average person that spend five years to graduate from college, studies for 10 hours per day for 20 days per month. This is 200 hours per month, or 2,000 hours per 10 study months per year, or 10,000 hours in college.

If 10,000-hour rule is true, time spent in the college should be enough to produce a specialist. Not an average one, but a top world professional in a given field. So how come we have crowd of graduates that are unemployed and face huge debt mountain.

How come so many millions of students waste their 10,000 hours? What is wrong with higher education? And how to change it for the better?

We are trying to come with the solution in Kazakhstan. Stay tuned.