- Most children entering primary school today are likely to work in jobs that do not yet exist.
- People change jobs — and even professions — much more often than a generation ago. The average European worker has gone from having a job for life to having more than 10 in a career.
- In an ageing society, with a workforce that is shrinking, Europeans will have to work longer. This means that those aged 40+ must be given substantial opportunities to update their skills.
- Less than 11% of Europeans aged between 25 and 64 are engaged in lifelong learning. On average, only 6% of older workers (aged 55 to 64 years old) currently participate in training and education schemes.
Demands for competences keep evolving. Investing in lifelong learning, including through more learning on the job, is the best promise to maximise future employability. Employers are already the biggest contributors to adult learning, accounting for roughly 50% of all spending, and workplace innovation is key to acquiring and updating skills. Education establishments also need to teach the advantages of continuous learning, and work out more attractive, open and inclusive ways to bring people in different phases of their life and professional cycles back into education.
The future is already here
Towards universities that continue to educate beyond graduation and majors
A design team from Stanford University’s d.school worked with hundreds of students and administrators to explore how higher education could be reinvented to deal with the potential disruption posed by online learning, and respond to shifting needs and expectations of future employers and students. Their vision of the university of the future consisted of the following dimensions:
- Open loop university: instead of limiting access to an academic setting in early adulthood, offer opportunities to prime-age adults to return, pivot careers and reconnect with the community.
- Paced education: rather than four-year courses structured around semesters and mainly based on lectures, offer phases of interactive learning, of varied length based on the needs of the students.
- Purpose learning: students would be asked to ‘declare a mission, not a major’ when starting their studies. For example, instead of saying that she is studying biology, a student would say that she is learning human biology to cure cancer, or drug addiction. Based on these, faculty and students would tackle societal challenges through ‘Impact labs’ around the world.
- Competence hubs: Rather than separate academic departments and disciplinary-based teaching, the university would create multidisciplinary competency hubs mixing faculty, researchers and students in state-of-the art studio classrooms. Upon completion of their courses, graduates would receive a ‘Skill-Print’ summarising their skills, capabilities, talents, ability to learn and work on projects and with team-members, to be used with prospective employers, rather than a grade transcript.
