According to Bill Gates, US billionaire, and founder of Microsoft, most classroom teaching jobs may be gone by 2035. Gates made this prediction in February, 2025 during a televised interview with Tonight Show host, Jimmy Fallon. Gates believes classroom teachers may become obsolete because of the wide availability of free educational content online, and because of the rapid growth in Artificial intelligence (AI). 

IMPACT OF THE COVID PANDEMIC ON EDUCATION

Classroom education’s rapid decline began during the Covid-19 pandemic when curfews, travel restrictions and school closures prompted governments and school districts to move learning online. In the months and years that followed, school teachers, lecturers, content creators and other skilled professionals created online content to reach their  travel-restricted audiences. Social media channels offered new, lucrative avenues to make additional income and monetize their knowledge, presentation and editing skills. The age of online learning was here to stay.

HOW TO MAKE A SUCCESSFUL E-LEARNING

With so much online competition, the quality and content of a video became the difference between online success and failure.

Texas A& M Physics Professor and teaching sensation, Tatiana Erukimova, said it best:

“From the very beginning, I need to connect. I need to inspire. I need to engage.”

Below is a link to where she shows physics concepts at work through fun experiments. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5uRtcvpdg4&t=384s

INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN TEACHERS DURING COVID

In 2020, two instructional designers (Devlin Peck, and Tim Slade) joined YouTube. They created engaging instructional design videos and posted them on that platform. Within five years, Devlin Pecks channel had garnered 61,000 subscribers, becoming the most watched and subscribed instructional design channel on YouTube. Slade and Pecks easy-to-follow YouTube tutorials helped me greatly. Another excellent teacher who shifted to online content is Dr David Christiansen of ELBLearning.com whose YouTube video taught me how to visualize an eLearning course. The link to his video is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJI5ZvcKtCM

When it comes to Web design, a good teacher-turned-online content creator I must mention is New Zealand born Dan Walter Scott, whose YouTube video below taught me webdesign using HTML, CSS3 and Visual Studio Code. I highly recommend his course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5QFHp1oAws&t=3908s

IMPACT OF AI ON EDUCATION

While the Covid 19 pandemic disrupted classroom teaching, the emergence of Artificial intelligence (AI), and Generative Artificial intelligence (GAI) threaten to end classroom teaching altogether.

GAI has advantages over traditional classroom learning because GAI can be personalized to each student’s learning style and level of ability. GAI can plan interactive lessons, generate quizzes, assignments and reports. GAI powered learning platforms, like Duolingo and Quillionz are used by millions of learners for self-tailored education.

In future, the potential convergence of GAI and the MetaVerse could create a fully immersive 3D online learning environment where students can conduct scientific experiments and test theories, eliminating the risk of lab accidents, human errors and safety violations.

Is there a future for classroom teaching? Classroom teachers will probably always be needed for younger children who need calm voices and emotional bonds with their teachers. But for high schoolers and college students? Probably not.

Only time will tell.

Obinna Ikeako

April 2nd, 2025.