Panellists at this year's The Straits Times Education Forum, organised by the newspaper in partnership with SMU, will explore issues about the changing landscape of university education, jobs and the economy, on March 25. SMU Board of Trustees Chairman Mr Ho Kwon Ping will give the keynote speech on the topic of the forum: The Future of Work, Universities and the Economy. He will then be joined by SMU President Professor Arnoud De Meyer, Google's Asia-Pacific Director of People Services D.N. Prasad, and ST Senior Education Correspondent Sandra Davie for a panel discussion. The experts on the panel, moderated by ST Managing Editor Fiona Chan, will draw on their unique experiences to share personal insights into education and the future economy.

Mr Ho, who is also Executive Chairman of Banyan Tree Holdings, said: "Jobs will increasingly involve technology, requiring employees to continually adapt their skill sets so as to stay relevant and be successfully employed in the workforce." He added that there will be growing demand for interdisciplinary expertise, as emerging industries in the digital economy will require a high level of competence across disparate areas such as business analytics, marketing and administration. Professor De Meyer said universities will not be able to ply their students "with vast amounts of domain knowledge in the hope that they will be prepared for whatever comes their way". "To be relevant in the face of rapid global changes, we will see in the future that coming back to university several times over the course of one's life will become a norm, not an exception," he predicted.