Nesta roundtable: future skills and making
Design Club was one of several organisations invited to take part in a Nesta roundtable this week. Here’s what happened.
Nesta is doing a lot of research into the future of work. Last year it published a report which identified a number of new occupations. The education team is particularly interested in how we prepare young people for the jobs of the future.
As Joysy John from Nesta pointed out, we’re already seeing automation perform many tasks. And while it’s certain that automation will take many jobs in future (such as secretarial and admin roles), other job areas will grow — especially those where the work demands empathy, creativity and problem-solving. As Joysy says, we need to stop agonising and take action to develop the skills we need.
The aim of this week’s roundtable was to get together a group of people who are creating interventions in tomorrow’s skills market, to find out what’s working and what’s not working.
It was great to meet and chat to so many others doing amazing things in this space. As well as Noam and myself from Design Club, there were Dee and Daniel (FixEd), Hannah (Royal College of Art), Natalie (Apps for Good), Kavita (Micro:bit Educational Foundation), Sam (Turing Lab), Oliver (Raspberry Pi Foundation) and Simon (MakerClub).
Over two and a half hours we had an interesting discussion, ranging from funding, diversity and inclusion to government policy (lamenting the collapse of the Studio Schools initiative and the “debacle” of T Levels), onto the very nature of creative skills and the best way to teach them.
Here are some of the key points that came up:
- We need to look beyond digital and tech skills to broader skills like empathy and problem-solving. Kavita from Micro:bit Educational Foundation talked about a British Council/ UNICEF programme in refugee camps in Greece where children developed outstanding teamwork skills — this was great to see in an environment where there was daily competition for resources.
- Existing frameworks for future skills are proving really useful. There was praise for the Enabling Enterprise Skills Builder framework which includes: listening, presenting, problem-solving, creativity, staying positive, aiming high, leadership and teamwork.
- Most skills identified as future skills are difficult to evaluate. Some organisations have experimented with self-reporting (“I improved here…”, “I would like more help with…”). Hannah from the Royal College of Art mentioned the idea of being “manipulate” — literate in the malleability of materials. Simon from MakerClub said it was possible to map creativity and said he knew of at least one taxonomy of creativity that’s been developed!
- After-schools clubs have proved a good way to approach/ get into schools. Oliver from Raspberry Pi said informal spaces like Code Club provided a place to experiment while still influencing kids and ultimately impacting what goes into the classroom.
- Private companies are happy to support programmes they see as developing skills in their future workforce. While corporate sponsors are funding many initiatives, there were fears that there may be a limit to those willing to donate. It was important for sponsors to see a tangible return on investment. Kavita suggested asking sponsors to set up internships (for 15 and 16 year olds) so they could potentially recruit directly from workshops.
- Schools are the best place to reach a diverse audience. Dee from FixEd said that schools — and the school curriculum — had to be the best place because that’s where everybody is: “once you start talking about sign-up, that’s a barrier”. Natalie from Apps for Good said she’s working with Oldham’s opportunity area where there’s “already a board and a framework in place to deliver to schools”.
- Children identified as “disruptive” perform as well as other children. Kavita said a collaboration with Goldman Sachs had proved particularly successful — the kids were super motivated when they found out how much bankers could earn! Simon (MakerClub) said similar outcomes were achieved because technology is a great leveller: “You’re starting with tech. Nobody knows everything”.
- Gender imbalance is still a massive issue. Oliver said we need to think hard about the language we use: don’t use exclusionary language. Girls are motivated by purpose rather than tinkering. Noam said that Design Club doesn’t use technology or coding and the split tends to be 80:20 in favour of girls. Kavita said Micro:bit Educational Foundation was prioritising gender balance and has just appointed more women to the board. She said that simply counting the number of girls in photos on their website had helped.
- The more visibility, the better. Daniel from FixEd mentioned the importance of YouTube: children love watching other people making; the Fixperts channel has been really successful. Simon said hands-on experience was unbeatable: “It’s great for kids to be able to get into a Fab Lab or somesuch. Just watching a laser cutter is amazing for them — being able to hold something in your hand that you’ve had in your brain.”
- These “future skills” (from coding to hands-on making) aren’t mapping directly onto the subjects teachers currently teach. It would be great if we could have a map, said Dee — is this a piece of work to do?
Everyone agreed it would be great to collaborate more and we hope to stay in touch. Nesta seems keen to facilitate the conversation — watch this space!
