Bill Gates has outlined his predictions for education in the next five years, believing that universities will become less important and the internet will rise to being the dominant force in education.

Speaking at the Techonomy 2010 conference, Gates spoke of changes in the education system that he thought would happen, noting that there will still be a place for primary and secondary education in schools but place-based learning – going off to college and university – will become far less important in the next five years.

"The self-motivated learner will be on the web and there will be far less place-based [learning]," Gates notes.

"The web can offer feedback, you can have group discussion, you have video… you have all sorts of things that [prove] college needs to be less place based."

Web chat

The reason for this sea change in education is money. Gates, who gives away most of his fortune to charity, is hoping to bring down the cost of higher education, making it fairer and far less elitist, and he sees the internet as the perfect conduit for this.

"We are trying to take the $200,000 education that is increasingly hard to get because there is less money for it and the capacity is not there, and we are trying to provide it to every kid who wants it," Gates explains.

"Only technology can bring that down that figure not to $20,000 but to $2,000. So place-based learning will be five times less important than it is today."

Surely that rules out 90% of students?

Gates has many admirable traits, but predicting the future hasn't counted among them, IMHO.

But the Internet doesn't give out diplomas, just for browsing a website, at least not yet... Maybe I've found a gap in the market.

Employers still look for an easy way to see how qualified people are for a job, school exam results and degrees allow them to make an initial judgement as to whether a person is worth a second look (at least with those without a track record in business). If you have somebody who has a first class degree and somebody who puts "browsed the Internet for 8 hours a day for the last 4 years," I know which one most employers will want to talk to, unless they are looking for a job in social media...

Surely that rules out 90% of students?

So, yes, the web is a great learning resource, but only if you can actually find anything really useful amongst the pages and pages of trash. I've wasted so much time scouring search results to actually find the nuggets of pure information I sought that most times I actually give up. I can go to a library and borrow a book to get quicker results.

If Gates wants the web to become a proper learning resource, he needs to make sure the search engine his company promotes makes it dead easy to filter the wheat from the chaff.

I'm not sure if Wolfram is the right thing. Isn't it technical and mathematical in nature?

I ought to try it out and see if it can answer the question: Can I get photos of Wolverton Station, platform 1 buildings in 1960?

None of the others helped.

I just tried Wolfram Alpha. It was hopeless for my search. It told me all about photos, all about platforms, all about stations. Nothing about the specifics. At least Bing and Google knew I was looking for a railway station in north Bucks.