This feature coincides with Joy's recent speech at AISH OASIS Day, 'The Importance of Education as Cultural Bridge in the Age of AI'. She posed a fundamental question: As machines become increasingly capable, what are schools for? 

Drawing on a groundbreaking OECD framework, she argued that education must evolve beyond economic productivity to nurture genuine human flourishing—cultivating pupils' ability to understand, appreciate, and act in the world, with adaptive problem-solving and ethical competence.

EDUCATION AS A PATHWAY TO HUMAN FLOURISHING

Words SASKIA TILLERS COLES

Produced by VIVEK NAIR

Stemming from a personal quest to educate her own children, Joy Qiao, Chair of Wellington College Education (China), has embarked on a quest to reshape education – championing a shift from grades and job-readiness to lifelong human flourishing in an AI-driven world.

Joy Qiao is passionate about the power of a good education. As she puts it, she is a product of the educational systems in China and England.

“I experienced firsthand the similarities and differences,” she says.

Completing her schooling in China before attending Oxford University to study computer science, Qiao was then awarded a highly competitive scholarship at a United States tech company, Intel, where she then worked for a decade.

It was only later, when exploring schooling options for her son, that she first became aware of the gap in China’s education system and began searching for a solution.

“The motivation initially came from my British husband and me,” she tells The CEO Magazine. “We are a biracial family. Therefore, we want our children to grow up bilingually, in a multicultural environment, with a cultural fluency to navigate today’s world.”

REDEFINING EDUCATION

During her research, Qiao discovered Sir Anthony Seldon, the 13th Master of the original Wellington College in the United Kingdom, a school system that aims to redefine what education means and place the wellbeing of children at the heart.

In a fortuitous turn of events, at that precise time, Sir Anthony was looking for a partner to introduce the Wellington model to China. When Qiao connected with him, it quickly became clear their visions were closely aligned, paving the way for the establishment of Wellington College Tianjin in 2011 and Wellington College International Shanghai in 2014.

Qiao became the school’s first international partner, taking Wellington College’s 160-year legacy to a global stage and launching a network that now spans multiple countries, with further expansion underway.

“We started as a not-for-profit and we remain a not-for-profit,” she says. “It’s not a commercial venture that we have because it came from the very personal, real need of educating my own children. To be able to now do this for 5,000 other children is a great honor and that kept the motivation going.”

“To be able to now do this for 5,000 other children is a great honor and that kept the motivation going.”

Ultimately, Qiao believes that the purpose of education is undergoing a profound transformation. No longer confined to producing human capital for the workforce, she argues it must evolve to nurture something far more enduring.

“We need to transition the education system from having a human capital purpose to a human flourishing purpose,” she says.

“Traditionally, the education system has been more about preparing children for a future job. Therefore, it has focused more on technical competency. But that is viewing a human more as a productive tool, isn’t it?

“When the economy is such that the basic material needs of people are hard to meet, of course that should be the focus – in order to flourish, you need to have food and shelter, you need to have the basic medical care – so I don’t think that was wrong.

“But in just a few short years, we’ve seen the progression of AI, humanoid robots. We can imagine a world in the future where these basic technical tasks can indeed be covered by AI or robots. Therefore, we need to be highly alert about the purpose of education.”

THE HUMAN CONNECTION

Through a close partnership with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Wellington College has been able to prove, with solid insights, what ‘human flourishing’ really means and the ripple effect it can have globally.

They have formalized the concept of flourishing in a measurable way through the PERMA model: positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning and achievement. For Qiao, this framework provides a vital structure for something long considered intangible.

“We can imagine a world in the future where these basic technical tasks can indeed be covered by AI or robots. Therefore, we need to be highly alert about the purpose of education.”

Qiao readily acknowledges that AI is a double-edged sword, providing opportunities for improved efficiencies while increasingly changing the workforce in ways we can’t currently predict.

“We cannot say for certain that any job won’t be able to be replaced by AI in 20 or 50 years,” she says.

“But in K–12 education, I have the firm belief that our teachers won’t be going anywhere anytime soon, because I witnessed the importance of that human connection, that personal touch that teachers have, and how much of an impact it has on students’ learning and wellbeing.”

A REAL-WORLD APPROACH

This philosophy is operationalized through five core competencies: appreciating, understanding and acting in the world, alongside ethical competence and adaptive problem-solving. Together, they represent a deliberate move away from siloed academic subjects toward a more integrated, real-world approach to learning.

She emphasizes that Wellington’s model isn’t about removing math, science or reading from the curriculum – instead it is about adding in new elements and shifting the overall focus beyond grading toward lifelong flourishing.

In practice, this means students are encouraged to engage with complex societal challenges. Through the Loutang Charity Project, students from Hiba Academy Shanghai – the group’s bilingual school – help support children of migrant workers in Shanghai. Rather than offering one-off donations, they designed a sustained initiative focused on companionship and cultural exchange.

“This is an example of exposing our children to the real world,” Qiao says. “It’s complex problem solving, communication, empathy, influencing skill, strategic planning and leadership. Those are all soft skills that cannot be tested in a standardized test, but they are ever more important in tomorrow’s world, in our opinion.”

“Whatever bias, whatever stereotype, whatever mistrust and misunderstanding in the world, the best way of solving it is by educating the next generation.”

This philosophy extends beyond graduation. With a growing global alumni network, Wellington positions itself as a lifelong community: “Once a Wellingtonian, always a Wellingtonian.”

The mission is not just educational, either, it is deeply cultural – a bridging between East and West, between different perspectives and ways of life.

“We need much more open-mindedness and curiosity,” Qiao concludes.

“I believe education is the only solution. Whatever bias, whatever stereotype, whatever mistrust and misunderstanding in the world, the best way of solving it is by educating the next generation so that they are much more able to accept, understand and value something that’s very different from their own.”