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Article talking about a Gap between skills and workforce.

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The school year has come to an end. For newly minted college graduates it can be a tumultuous time filled with anticipation, anxiety, happiness and disappointment. Although some college graduates will find their first, degree-related job right out of college, it's not the case for most.

The prospect for adequate employment has been dismal for millennials as a whole - and often means going back to their parents' home to embark on a multi-month job search that often ends in underemployment. The reason, as 73 percent of hiring managers point out, is that colleges are not completely preparing students for the working world and there is nothing filling the teaching gap.

The underemployment rate has improved from 46 percent to 44.6 percent in the last year, but we must keep in mind that the rate is still quite high compared to historical numbers. It was only at 38 percent in 2000 and held a 41 percent average before the recession. Yes, a healthier market has created more opportunity, but it is only making a small dent in the underemployment increase that has occurred not only because of a weaker economy, but also because of the technologically fostered change in the nature of jobs today.

In fact, a recent study found that the concern for employment is so ubiquitous for the millennial demographic that it has become the most important presidential campaign issue for the group. It's a rising concern, as the same study found that more millennials than ever plan to vote in next year's election, as well as it being the first time the entire millennial population will be voting as part of the working-age group. So what's the root of this problem? How will it be addressed?

Colleges are not completely preparing students for the working world.

To get back to pre-recession levels, or better, we need to do more than just see what an improved market does. Instead, we must spur on progress through new programs and restructured educational infrastructures - or never catch up. Traditional education can no longer keep up; it's time we take a new approach in preparing the future workforce.

The Problem: A College Education Doesn't Necessarily Prepare for a Job

Some, like Peter Thiel, have come out with bold proclamations saying that people need to forget about college. That they're be better off taking independent courses online, doing boot camps and taking a hands-on approach to gain the relevant skills needed for their desired roles. While I don't agree completely - as college is invaluable for gaining life experience, finding a good network and becoming critically apt at various tasks - he's partially right.

Universities continue to dwell on the theoretical in favor of the practical, and it doesn't bode well in results-driven industries. According to research from Accenture, eight out of 10 recent graduates are optimistic about future career-oriented employment, while nearly half (49 percent) of their 2013 and 2014 predecessors report being underemployed.

Students and colleges think they are doing enough, but the numbers tell a different story. It's a major problem for businesses that want to hire employees that can hit the ground running, especially considering the amount of competition many companies face today.

But employers are also partially at fault. Many companies have opted out of providing comprehensive training programs - especially in the startup environment where funds are a hot commodity. But it can be a pitfall, considering that only 15 percent of recent graduates - who are often underprepared as noted by employers - would opt for a large company instead of small one. This, coupled with universities' inability to fully prepare work-force candidates, equals a reduced pool of adequate new hire contenders. In other words, the problem does not rest on colleges alone.

The truth is that rapid changes have made it difficult for educational institutions to adapt and, in turn, have created a disconnect between higher education and the workforce while employers fail to step in. This is happening now, especially in the non-STEM-related majors (science, technology, engineering and math).

For example, you may be going to one of the best higher education institutions in the country, but a degree in marketing or communications won't pay off by the time you enter the workforce. Most top universities don't offer Facebook or Google-search marketing courses that matter for today's market; instead, they opt for commercial creation or branding strategies that no longer widely apply. Congruently, most employers also fail to deliver on the training.

Despite the apparent problem, eliminating the entire college experience would be a huge detriment to job seekers, affecting everything from their future professional networks to their intercommunication and comprehension skills. Boot camps and the like are great in their own right, but cannot deliver the sense of community or "real-world" training one gets from being on their own for the first time.

The solution is not in cutting out the college experience but complementing it. This means supplementing the university experience and bolstering in-class experiences with third-party courses that are relevant to students' long-term career goals. For example, practical courses on Facebook marketing, Twitter marketing and Google marketing already exist.

The Solution: Bolster Higher Education with Practical Supplemental Training

I'm imagining a new brand of schooling model that complements traditional structures with on-demand learning based on current need or future aspiration. This would also continue beyond the university environment and into a lifetime of learning for all professionals.

LinkedIn is already jumping on the idea with the acquisition of Lynda.com. It is merging a giant networking and recruiting platform with a service that can seamlessly help users learn the skills they need for an appealing job posting.

Udemy, which announced it has closed a $65 million Series D financing round, offers courses in the same vein, and aims to provide long-term learning opportunities for anyone with the appetite. Notably, Udemy's course, " The Complete Apple Watch Developer Course - Build 14 Apps," which opened in late February in anticipation of the Apple Watch's release in April, was extremely successful for both the instructor and the students. It exemplified the ability for such courses to quickly address an entirely new subject with speed and efficiency.

And it's becoming more important than ever, as companies like Facebook, Morgan Stanley and Twitter use services like HackerRank or Gradberry to hire and place developers based on their demonstrated ability. It's no longer about a brand name university or resume, but about results and competency.

In short, new players like Udemy, Lynda.com and HackerRank among others are helping overcome both the current millennial employment hurdle and nationwide unemployment problem. Monolithic educational structures are losing stride with the new work environment, which often lacks the resources to ramp up new employees, and everyone is paying the price.

It's time we revamp the way we teach and learn and adopt a new system that takes personal needs and sudden developments into account. And this is not only for those in college; anyone can and should apply to continue a life-long journey of learning based on need and curiosity.

Featured Image: Africa Studio/Shutterstock

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Bridging The Gap Between Education And The Future Workforce

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The school year has come to an end. For newly minted college graduates it can be a tumultuous time filled with anticipation, anxiety, happiness and disappointment. Although some college graduates will find their first, degree-related job right out of college, it's not the case for most.

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An article on the need for education to change before it's too late.

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We believe the next five years are vital to the future of education in Australia. As we see it, our choices are stark; we can base what we do on successful models from Australia and around the world or we can embrace practices whose deleterious results have already been demonstrated elsewhere. The choices we make can set our nation on a path towards competitiveness and innovation or irrelevancy in the global economy.
What difference will the change of Prime Minister and Education Minister make?
The recent change of Prime Minister and Education Minister might see some changes in direction. New education minister, Stephen Birmingham, has flagged an interest in vocational education and stated he is "not wedded" to university fee deregulation. It is likely he will redirect higher education reform to strong incentives for improving student persistence and graduation from university.

As we see it, vocational education reform is more than a federal/state issue, it is about skillsets needed to be successful in the innovation age economy. And University reform based on graduation requirements has promise, however is wrought with potential flaws as we can see from the experience of other countries.
Australia will need a lot more than fiddling at the edges of education policy if we are to have a successful future as a nation. What makes us think education in Australia is at a crossroad?
A series of educational reports have been released recently that appear to raise concern about the health of our educational systems. In a climate where policymakers are pushing for educational reforms, we can see these reports being used as levers for change.

First, in July, the Grattan Institute released a report Targeted teaching: How to get the best from our schoolchildren which revealed the gap in student performance, particularly in year eight maths, across Australia. The report highlights teaching quality as the foremost issue we must address to meet broad student needs.

In August, NAPLAN scores were reported as flat. The report said, "in the seven years since the tests were introduced in primary and high schools, most measurements show no major improvement."

Later in August, in NSW figures released indicated that teacher mental health leave and compensation claims were up 40%. The New South Wales Education Department said insurers received nearly 690 claims for "psychological injury" from school staff in the last financial year, compared to 490 the year before.

In addition, it appears there are limited opportunities for University graduates in the marketplace. Also the most disadvantaged are even worse off than in the past. The Australian Council for Educational Research highlighted the impact of disadvantage on completion rates for university, with "low SES, non-metropolitan and Indigenous students less likely to complete their programs than their peers."

These converging narratives appear to be leading us to the policies of the US and UK.

Faced with similar educational indicators in the early 2000s, both nations pinned their hopes on competition and privatization schemes. These were grounded in the idea that competition among schools and between teachers actually improves student learning.
Private is good, public is bad
How was this idea allowed to take hold? American scholar Michael Apple notes,

"We live in a world where we have been told through highly funded and widely publicized media that what is public is bad and what is private is necessarily good."

Many would contend Apple's worldview is now alive in Australia as evidenced by recent moves to turn public services such as rail and electricity networks over to private companies.
The future with a US or UK focus
If the US experience is illustrative, following this same 'private is good, public is bad' formula in education will lead to an increase in testing regimens and test-focused curricula as schools increasingly compete.

Enormous corporations will run mediocre charter schools across the nation, which will be part of a widespread but failing school choice program. There will be a devaluing of the public sector for education and further socio economic-based segregation of schooling and society.

Our hope is that we also avoid the onerous inspectorate model of England.
An alternative, evidence-based, better future
There are many impressive innovations occurring in Australia and around the world that we could be using more widely. These reform-based models are offering meaningful education experiences for students, often with little fanfare.

For example:

The Big Picture School model is revolutionizing schooling for many young people who are "leaving school to learn." The work-integrated-learning approach coupled with a new form of transdisciplinary pedagogy is gaining traction all around the country.

Advancement via Individual Determination (AVID) models are emerging for students "in the middle," who have unrealized potential and need structure, mentoring, study techniques and peer support.

Schools such as Broadmeadow Primary near Melbourne are using neuroscience to guide a whole-child approach to teaching and learning with fantastic results.

Project-based learning is increasing across the K-12 spectrum leading to exciting new frontiers for the future of schooling.

International Baccalaureate program emphasizes a world-calibrated curriculum, problem-solving and globally marked high-level written assessment tasks.

In the US, the Early College model is changing the scope and sequence of the entire curriculum for students who are placed at risk in traditional school settings. The Early College model could work here.

These innovations involve a series of integrated skills that fit the innovation approach to teaching and learning that other countries are advancing. The skills are not currently assessed by NAPLAN or the HSC. They include a high level of knowledge and skills in:

Applied literacy and numeracy

Presentation

Technology savvy

Collaboration

Global awareness

Work-integrated learning

Market-ready and university-ready skills combined.

We believe Australia is at a cusp of exciting change. We hope foresight can help push back the anti-public school rhetoric and anti-progressive policies that confront us. Yes some valid concerns have been raised but we have, right in front of us, some really positive examples of what works.

Hopefully we can use them to guide us to a future where Australia plays a relevant role on the world stage as knowledge leaders. Let's not look back on a generational opportunity that we had and let slip away.
John Fischetti is Professor and Head of School/Dean of Education at the University of Newcastle. John's research focuses on reframing teacher education, school reform and learner-focussed teaching. John can be reached at john.fischetti@newcastle.edu.au or on twitter @fischettij Scott Imig is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at the University of Newcastle. Scott's research is in instructional leadership, school reform and mentoring. Scott can be reached at scott.imig@newcastle.edu.au

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Education in Australia needs to change direction NOW, before it's too late

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We believe the next five years are vital to the future of education in Australia. As we see it, our choices are stark; we can base what we do on successful models from Australia and around the world or we can embrace practices whose deleterious results have already been demonstrated elsewhere.

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An Educator article which talks to some issues currently in the education sector.

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Schools are failing to prepare students for the future world and workplace, warns a global education thought leader

Charles Fadel, founder and chairman of the Center for Curriculum Redesign (CCR), is a futurist, expert, author and inventor.

He has worked with a wide variety of education ministries and organisations, and has contributed to education projects in more than 30 countries. On 11 May, he will be delivering the second Australian Learning Lecture in Melbourne.

His first lecture -'The New Success: What qualities and skills do our children need to succeed in the 21st Century?' - looked at the race between technology and education, and urged teachers to consider how to best prepare students for the future.

In an interview with The Educator ahead of the lecture, Fadel said that a major rethink of schooling is needed, and warned that what schools currently teach is "self-serving in a narrow and traditional sense".

"[Schools] do not teach for the societal needs at large and employability. This is coupled with narrow assessments focused on traditional knowledge [The 3 Rs] and placing a value on scores - not deep learning," he said.

"Teachers have not been trained to the new requirements. There is a lack of political courage due to a lack of understanding by the general population of the risks of not moving forward. In fact, change is the safest approach."

As for the major reforms that Australian education is embarking upon, Fadel said that reform is more than a question of teacher quality and school funding.

"What is required is a massive rethink about modernising what students learn as an imperative," he said.

"Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths [STEM] matter increasingly, but Humanities and Arts remain essential, each borrowing from the other, for a deeply versatile education."

Fadel said that no country has done a comprehensive redesign of their education or adapted to "a world of search and artificial intelligence".

However, he said Australia has a unique opportunity to lead the world as it has "an entrepreneurial spirit, coupled with a cogent education system willing to consider adapting".

Fadel said that in terms of technology, most parents and politicians are "lured by the shiny objects and thirst for a panacea", rather than the "tough, invisible slog of quality content and teacher training" which must accompany technology deployment.

"Digital devices are important but only if used as part of transforming education: as digital literacy, and to give young people the depth of understanding they need to succeed," Fadel said.

"We need to make sure that children have a strong foundation in the 3Rs but that they also embrace the transferable skills they need, such as problem-solving, collaboration and communication. This can be helped by digital devices."

The role of principals and teachers in preparing students for life after school is crucial but hoping that this will resolve all issues lacks an understanding of "the demands of the real world", said Fadel.

"Teaching is an isolated profession. Today the world of work is changing fast. Jobs are disappearing as automation replaces the need for people and new jobs are emerging that demand transferable skills and capabilities," he said.

"This is affecting manual labour, and white-collar jobs too. Global boundaries are disappearing too, which presents opportunities - and risks - for Australian workers."

Research suggests that students in 2017 can expect to have up to 17 jobs and five careers after they leave school. Fadel said these factors, and others, are why education must shift to give children what they need to thrive in the 21st Century.

"The requirements must come from departments of education, along with new assessments to drive new behaviours," Fadel said.

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Expert slams 'self-serving' education system

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Schools are failing to prepare students for the future world and workplace, warns a global education thought leader Charles Fadel, founder and chairman of the Center for Curriculum Redesign (CCR), is a futurist, expert, author and inventor. He has worked with a wide variety of education ministries and organisations, and has contributed to education projects in more than 30 countries.

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An article on the need for education reform in light of workforce requirements.

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A new research report on our future workforce warns that Queensland could be "left behind" if we do not embrace progressive reforms in education and training.

The joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry Queensland (CCIQ) and CQUniversity Australia report, to be released in Brisbane in Friday, analyses the needs of the state's future workforce and how to develop the skills needed to power our economy.
Download the Full Report (2MB PDF)
The report entitled, Transitioning Queensland's Workforce: Developing the skills needed to power our future economy, sets out six key priorities for preparing future workforces.

They include:

* Setting strong foundations to develop 21st century skills

* The right structure for career development and mentoring

* Leveraging the workforce through lifelong learning

* Leveraging STEM skills to drive the digital workforce

* Building regional capacity for entrepreneurship

* Industry engagement to drive sustainable growth

These priorities are based on Queensland facing significant challenges following the slow-down of the construction and mining boom, falling commodity prices, and an ageing population that will see workforce participation decline in the coming decade.

They focus on delivering a quality education and training system, with suggested sweeping reforms to the VET system and employing the latest technology and best-practice to reduce barriers of demography and geography.

CCIQ Policy Advisor Catherine Pham said that Queenslanders need to start planning for the future in order to maintain our current living standards and income growth.

"Queensland and Queenslanders, will essentially need to do produce more with less, utilising our skills and intellectual resources more efficiently," Ms Pham said.

"Competition, however, will be fierce as other states and countries are already starting to move to a knowledge economy.

"We believe 21st century' skills, beyond just literacy, numeracy and digital literacy, will be required by individuals in order to succeed in this current business environment. Such skills include collaboration, creativity, problem-solving, persistence, curiosity and initiative.

"That's because jobs in the 21st century will be increasingly centred on using data to find solutions to unstructured problems and a rise in automation and digitalisation will mean people need increased interpersonal and non-routine analytical skills."

Professor Lee Di Milia, Dean of CQUniversity's School of Business and Law, said schools, universities and training providers have an important role to play in ensuring future workforce participants acquire these skills and understand how to apply them.

"There are significant challenges facing not just Queensland's economy but our national economy, however these challenges should be embraced as opportunities as there has never been a better, nor more crucial time for education providers to work with government and industry to identify future need and commit to bringing about change," he said.

"From a university prospective we need to equip our students with entrepreneurial values and skills, and ensure individuals are adaptable to change and innovation.

"In teaching entrepreneurship we will likely see a rise in 'intrapreneurs' who don't go out on their own but instead act as highly valuable team members by applying entrepreneurial practice and principles to their roles within a particular workplace.

"This is extremely important as these individuals will support growth, drive change and help businesses identify and take advantage of new opportunities."

The report also recommends government acknowledgement and engagement with industry advisory boards; maintaining funding levels in the industry skills fund; reducing red tape when it comes to funding grants aimed at reducing youth unemployment; maintaining contestability in the VET provider marketplace.
Transitioning Queensland's Workforce Report Launch Event (all media welcome)Date: Friday, 16 September 2016 Time: 10am - 12pm Venue: CQUniversity Brisbane Campus, Level 4, 160 Ann St Brisbane Cost: Complimentary (light morning tea provided)

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New research examines future workforce need for Queensland

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A new research report on our future workforce warns that Queensland could be "left behind" if we do not embrace progressive reforms in education and training. The joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry Queensland (CCIQ) and CQUniversity Australia report, to be released in Brisbane in Friday, analyses the needs of the state's future workforce and how to develop the skills needed to power our economy.

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Edutopia article on finding the balance between technology and teaching.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Article in SMH about PWC ending the requirement of a University Degree

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A leading finance company will let year 12 students bypass university and begin working as accountants and risk management consultants straight after high school from this year, and at least five other companies are in talks to do the same.

The move is being supported by the government and school career advisers as a way to bring down student debt levels and provide more opportunities for disadvantaged students.

Here's how Apple's numbers impact its suppliers

The "higher apprenticeship" pilot program, to be launched next month, will target about 250 school-leavers but has the potential to grow to thousands of students, Assistant Minister for Vocational Education and Skills Karen Andrews said.

Designed and led by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the program will run for 18 months and allow school-leavers to get a business diploma while they work alongside graduate employees in core company areas. At least five other companies are expected to participate.

Ms Andrews hailed the program as an alternative to the traditional pathway that "universities have been very good at selling".

"If you're thinking about a career in something like finance, we're saying you don't have to sign on to a uni course," Ms Andrews said.

"You have options to get yourself out earning and learning at the same time."

Secretary of the Careers Advisers Association of NSW and ACT Jenine Smith said this was a "great opportunity" for high school students.

"They'll have the huge advantage of having an advance qualification [while] they don't have a student debt," Ms Smith said.

PwC's talent acquisition director Julie Duncan said school-leavers would receive the same pay as other non-graduate employees, including trainees who are completing university degrees while they work.

"They'll have exactly the same career progress as their graduate and non-graduate peers," Ms Duncan said.

"The future of work is changing and we're looking to hire the skills of the future, not the degrees of the future.

"That includes students who choose not to go to uni, can't afford to or just don't know what they want to do."

Catriona Jackson, deputy chief executive of representative body Universities Australia, said the PwC program is "a complement, rather than a competitor, to the education offered by universities".

"For many students, attending university brings a wide range of benefits including specific technical knowledge, communication and critical thinking skills and diverse professional networks."

Ms Andrews said this pathway could potentially provide greater job certainty for students.

"We don't have the figures for the higher apprenticeships yet but if you go through a trade apprenticeship you have a 90 per cent chance of having a full-time job at the end of it, and you earn significant money as you go," she said.

About 77 per cent of people who graduated university with accounting degrees and were seeking work held full-time jobs in 2015, compared to nearly 97 per cent in 1982 and 86 per cent in 2000, a Graduate Careers Australia survey found.

A fall in graduate employment levels has occurred across most disciplines including law, with 91.4 per cent of graduates working full-time in 2015, compared to a peak of 97 per cent of law graduates in 1987.

President of the Law Society of NSW Pauline Wright said law firms in the UK increasingly look at hiring people outside the law discipline, but the approach was unlikely to be adopted in Australia any time soon.

"You don't want to see your brain surgeon not properly qualified, and in the same way you don't want someone representing you to not have that proper training," Ms Wright said.

The PwC program is modelled on a scheme similar to one the company has run successfully in the UK for more than a decade.

It is part of a broader push by the Australian government and industry to "future-proof" jobs against expected changes to the economy.

"It's all based on us being adaptable," Ms Duncan said.

"The jobs people are doing will look very different in 20 years. A degree doesn't mean that's your job for life."

The move comes after PwC's own research found that traditional accounting is the profession most at risk from technology - 5.1 million jobs could be disrupted.

There is a 97.5 per cent chance accounting will be automated in the next 20 years, threatening nearly 264,000 Australian jobs, the 2015 report found.

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The big finance company that no longer requires you to graduate uni

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A leading finance company will let year 12 students bypass university and begin working as accountants and risk management consultants straight after high school from this year, and at least five other companies are in talks to do the same.

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Article about the need for reform in the college degree level

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Can we fix higher education? Is it possible to reform an institution so plagued by bloated costs, academic failure, debt and political correctness? And why would this time be different?

The questions sound naïve since so many previous attempts have failed to dent academia's stubborn resistance to change. Nearly three decades ago, I wrote a book called ProfScam, an admittedly harsh indictment of American colleges and universities and professors. "The result is a modern university distinguished by costs that are zooming out of control," I wrote in 1988, "curriculums that look like they were designed by a game show host; nonexistent advising programs; lectures of droning, mind-numbing dullness often to 1,000 or more semi-anonymous undergraduates... teaching assistants who can't speak understandable English; and the product of this all, a generation of expensively credentialed college students who might not be able to locate England on a map."

Having set out my critique and hopeful suggestions, I wrote, "Help is on the way."

But it really wasn't. Not only did nothing change, but almost everything I described in the book got worse, from the flight from teaching to the crushing level of student debt .

But the prospects for reform are better now than they were 28 years ago. There are three reasons for guarded optimism: First, the higher education bubble-$1.3 trillion in student debt -that has raised new questions about the cost and value of college; second, new technologies that threaten the status quo such as MOOC s; and third, a willingness to contemplatebig, bold reforms.

To finally reform higher education, we should start by asking fundamental questions, such as: Why does it take four years to get a degree?

There is, after all, nothing sacred about four years. Why not three? Or two, or one? As author and education critic Charles Murray has noted in his book Real Education, students who want to be software designers, accountants, hospital administrators, high school teachers, social workers, journalists, optometrists or interior designers do not need to spend four years in college. Classes that would allow them to obtain "the academic basis for competence" would take one or perhaps two years. The rest is merely time-wasting, expensive filler.

If a university announced that henceforth, it would be offering a three-year bachelor's degree, in one stroke it would cut the cost of a college education and provide a distinctive way of competing for students-as well as put the institution on the cutting edge of reform.

But there is an even more radical idea: Wedding the three-year degree to Massive Open Online Courses-an idea that could change the basic nature of higher education.

Futurist Nathan Harden sees the MOOCs as a mighty and irresistible model of creative destruction: " The live lecture will be replaced by streaming video. The administration of exams and exchange of coursework over the Internet will become the norm... Universities will extend their reach to students around the world, unbounded by geography or even by time zones. All of this will be on offer, too, at a fraction of the cost of a traditional college education."

The results, he wrote, will be apocalyptic: "The future looks like this: Access to college-level education will be free for everyone; the residential college campus will become largely obsolete; tens of thousands of professors will lose their jobs; the bachelor's degree will become increasingly irrelevant; and ten years from now, Harvard will enroll ten million students."

The MOOCs would challenge the status quo on just about every level of higher education, from admissions to teaching to the granting of coveted degrees. When universities no longer hold the keys to those credentials, their world will be rocked. This is not only disruptive. It is breathtakingly radical. The MOOCs are anti-elitist and profoundly meritocratic. There would be no barriers to entry, no SAT or ACT scores, no legacy admissions preferences, no class or race bias, no affirmative action, no bloated lists of extra-curricular activities-just the willingness to do the work and to achieve mastery. Equally radical, they would shift power from the institution to the student as academia decentralizes in a way familiar to so many other industries that have found themselves upended by consumer-driven on-demand models. Let's imagine this possible future:

Rather than showing up with a degree from the U of Somewhere with a simple BA degree, a student arrives for her first interview with a degree or a bundle of certificates of mastery that includes courses with world-class scholars.

She can show her prospective employer a stacked portfolio that includes a course in artificial intelligence from Stanford, courses in computer science from Cornell and Harvard, a course in Alexander the Great from Wellesley, a course in environmental law from Yale and a course in globalization from Georgetown. Her degree also includes "verified certificates from Princeton for a course in the 'paradoxes of war,' a course from the Copenhagen Business School in 'social Entrepreneurship,' and the University of Pennsylvania's 'Analyzing Global Trends for Business and Society.'"

She can moreover show that in each of those courses she achieved actual mastery, in contrast to other graduates who may have gotten credit for C-level work in far less demanding classes.

And our applicant shows up without a mountain of debt, since she was able to get her degree for a fraction of what her peers pay.

That student could mark the beginning of the end for the business model that has sustained higher education for decades. Colleges and universities would have to be smaller, more nimble, more focused on students. But they could replace much of their lost tuition revenue by offering a richer array of offerings to a much wider audience of potential students. Of course, academia has proven remarkably resistant to change. But it's just possible that this time may be different.

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Can we fix higher education? Is it possible to reform an institution so plagued by bloated costs, academic failure, debt and political correctness? And why would this time be different? The questions sound naïve since so many previous attempts have failed to dent academia's stubborn resistance to change.

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The Australian article on the issues of Globalisation and impact this is having on politics.

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1. Open the Internet Browser

2. Click Tools (or "gear" icon at top right hand corner) > Internet Options > Privacy > Advanced

3. Check Override automatic cookie handling

4. For First-party Cookies and Third-party Cookies click Accept

5. Click OK and OK

Enabling Cookies in Internet Explorer 10, 11

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2. Click the Tools button, and then click Internet Options.

3. Click the Privacy tab, and then, under Settings, move the slider to the bottom to allow all cookies, and then click OK.

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2. Click Tools icon Or type in Go to chrome://settings/ to the URL window, hit enter

3. Click 'Advanced settings' > Select Privacy > Content settings

4. Check 'Allow local data to be set (recommended)'

5. Click 'Done'

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Open the Internet Browser Click Tools (or "gear" icon at top right hand corner) > Internet Options > Privacy > Advanced Check Override automatic cookie handling For First-party Cookies and Third-party Cookies click Accept Click OK and OK Enabling Cookies in Internet Explorer 10, 11 Open the Internet Browser Click the Tools button, and then click Internet Options.

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Article on the discourse between industry requirements and university focuses

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So, what do you want to be when you grow up? We have been putting this question to children and young people since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Whatever answer young people proffered - engineer, accountant, hairdresser, dentist, teacher, scientist, doctor - would then point them to the training they would need, and whether they should go to university or TAFE or enter an apprenticeship.

Today that question no longer serves. The assumption on which it is predicated - a single career for life in a stable workforce - is now false. The world of work is in a massive transition to an ever more global, technology-driven, flexible economy in which whole professions are being altered, new professions are coming into existence, and traditional jobs are being swallowed by automation.

To cite just one example, app developers were a rare breed until the launch of the iPhone in 2007; now it is a thriving industry in its own right - at least for now, until a new technology comes along and apps face their own Kodak moment.

The Foundation for Young Australians has been researching this confronting and exciting change to how people earn their daily bread. It has sought to understand the dimensions of this change, the implications for young people - and thereby, the future of this country - and what we need to do to prepare young people for their economic lives.

To that end, the foundation initiated a policy and research program called the New Work Order. Our first report, launched in August 2015, explored the three economic forces - automation, globalisation and collaboration - shaping the future of work. It's conclusion: In a world where change is the one constant, a 15-year-old today can expect to have upwards of 17 jobs in five different industries over the course of their working life.

Our second report, How Young People are Faring, released in September last year, examined how - and how well - young Australians are being prepared for this new reality. In the new work order, young people will need excellent enterprise skills - digital literacy, critical thinking, creativity, financial savvy, flexibility, the ability to collaborate, self-sufficiency - to survive and thrive in a radically altered economy.

Yet our research shows young people are not ready. According to data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), almost a third of Australian 15-year-olds have low proficiency in both financial literacy and problem solving, and more than a quarter demonstrate low proficiency in digital literacy. Moreover, ever larger numbers of young people will need to become job creators, rather than relying on the old paradigm of being job seekers, yet little is being done in our education systems to embed enterprise skills.

For our most recent report in this series, The New Basics, we compared the skills sought by employers just three years ago with the skills required today. This was done by analysing 4.2 million ads for jobs requiring less than five years of experience. The results were astonishing.

Since 2013 the demand for digital skills has increased by more than 200 per cent, critical thinking by more than 150 per cent, creativity by more than 60 per cent, and presentation skills by 25 per cent. These are the new basics that entrants to the economy already require, and which will be essential in the future.

The report also concludes that jobs that have a strong focus on technical skills, such as dentistry, environmental engineering and veterinary, are now among the most common occupations requiring digital literacy.

The foundation is relentlessly optimistic; we believe Australia is well placed to maximise the opportunities this historic restructure of workforce relations presents. A country of 24 million people with more than 2 million small businesses attests to our willingness and capacity to engage in enterprise.

We must take action, now. It begins with investment in an enterprise education strategy. We need to teach enterprise skills, starting in primary school and building year on year throughout high school. These must be taught in ways students want to learn, through experience and immersion with peers.

We need to support our teachers to equip students for the fluid, complex, enterprising new work order. Concurrently, parents must be provided with information about the skills their children will need to craft and navigate multiple careers. Urgently, we need to engage students, schools, industry and parents to understand the new work order, which although less stable and predictable, is rich in opportunity.

We will achieve a future-ready workforce by embedding the new basics in the DNA of future generations. By investing in the next generation to equip and inspire them for a radically different future of work, we will ensure Australia's future prosperity.

Next time you are talking with a child or young person about their future, instead of asking , "So, what do you want to be when you grow up?" ask them: "So, what kind of opportunities do you want to create?"
Jan Owen is chief executive officer of the Foundation for Young Australians.

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program for international student assessment

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Young people are not taught the skills they will need for multiple careers

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So, what do you want to be when you grow up? We have been putting this question to children and young people since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Whatever answer young people proffered - engineer, accountant, hairdresser, dentist, teacher, scientist, doctor - would then point them to the training they would need, and whether they should go to university or TAFE or enter an apprenticeship.

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A research arm using trend analysis to isolate the most required job skills going forward.

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Global connectivity, smart machines, and new media are just some of the drivers reshaping how we think about work, what constitutes work, and the skills we will need to be productive contributors in the future. This report analyzes key drivers that will reshape the landscape of work and identifies key work skills needed in the next 10 years. It does not consider what will be the jobs of the future. Many studies have tried to predict specific job categories and labor requirements. Consistently over the years, however, it has been shown that such predictions are difficult and many of the past predictions have been proven wrong. Rather than focusing on future jobs, this report looks at future work skills-proficiencies and abilities required across different jobs and work settings.

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Global connectivity, smart machines, and new media are just some of the drivers reshaping how we think about work, what constitutes work, and the skills we will need to be productive contributors in the future. This report analyzes key drivers that will reshape the landscape of work and identifies key work skills needed in the next 10 years.

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An article talking to the impact of global saturation of graduates in the future

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ICEF Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment

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The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has just released a new report, which is part of the Education Indicators in Focus series, looking at higher education graduates between the ages of 25 and 34 in OECD and Group of Twenty member countries - 42 countries in total.

Top findings include:

The expansion of higher education in rapidly-developing G20 nations has reduced the share of tertiary graduates from Europe, Japan and the United States in the global talent pool.

If current trends continue, China and India will account for 40% of all young people with a tertiary education in G20 and OECD countries by the year 2020, while the United States and European Union countries will account for just over 25%.

The strong demand for employees in "knowledge economy" fields (i.e., STEM) suggests that the global labour market can continue to absorb the increased supply of highly-educated individuals.

Highlights: 2010 vs. 2020

China is expected to produce 29% of all higher education graduates aged 25-34 (up from 18% in 2010);

the United States is expected to produce 11% of all those graduates (down from 14% in 2010);

India, which produced 11% of graduates in 2010, is expected to overtake the United States and produce 12% of the share of graduates by the end of this decade;

the UK's share should increase from 3% in 2010 to 4% in 2020;

significant declines are forecasted for Japan (from 7% to 4%) and the Russian Federation (from 11% to 7%);

in 2020, 6% of young graduates will hail from Indonesia.

Share of 25-34 year-olds with a tertiary degree across OECD and G20 countries
(2000, 2010, 2020)

Note: Figures in these graphs are estimates based on available data. Projections presented do not take into account policy measures being pursued in some countries to increase higher education attainment.
Source: OECD Database, UNESCO and National Statistics websites for Argentina, China, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.

The global talent pool has grown rapidly over the past decade

In 2000, there were 51 million 25-34 year-olds with higher education (tertiary) degrees in OECD countries, and 39 million in non-OECD G20 countries.

Over the past decade, however, this gap has nearly closed, in large part because of the remarkable expansion of higher education in this latter group of countries. For example, in 2010 there were an estimated 66 million 25-34 year-olds with a tertiary degree in OECD countries, compared to 64 million in non-OECD G20 countries.

If this trend continues, the number of 25-34 year-olds from Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia and South Africa with a higher education degree will be almost 40% higher than the number from all OECD countries by the year 2020.

The number of higher education graduates will continue to grow

It's likely that the global talent pool will continue to grow across most OECD and G20 countries, and that the fast-growing G20 economies will continue to account for an increasingly large share. According to OECD calculations, there will be more than 200 million 25-34 year-olds with higher education degrees across all OECD and G20 countries by the year 2020.

What's more, 40% of them will be from China and India alone.

By contrast, the United States and the European Union countries are expected to account for just over a quarter of young people with tertiary degrees in OECD and G20 countries.

In fact, these projections may underestimate the future growth of the global talent pool, because a number of countries are pursuing initiatives to increase tertiary attainment rates even further.

For instance, in 2009 the United States established a goal to become the nation with the highest proportion of 25-34 year-old university graduates by 2020. To meet this target, officials estimate that the proportion of younger adults in the US with a tertiary degree will need to reach 60% by the end of the decade.

In addition, the European Union established a goal to increase the percentage of 30-34 year-olds who have completed tertiary education by at least 40% in each EU country by 2020. In 2009, Belgium, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom already reached this goal for the larger 25-34 year-old population.

Meanwhile, China - which has quintupled its number of tertiary graduates and doubled its number of tertiary institutions in the last 10 years - is also pursuing ambitious objectives.

By 2020, China aims for 20% of its citizens - or 195 million people - to have higher education degrees. If this goal is realised, China will have a population of tertiary graduates that is roughly equal in size to the entire projected population of 25-64 year-olds in the United States in 2020.

The "knowledge economy" must grow to absorb the growing talent pool

In many ways, the rapid expansion of the global talent pool - and its expected growth in the future - is no surprise. Since higher levels of education are strongly linked to higher employment rates and larger earnings premiums, individuals have strong incentives to pursue more education.

Similarly, as national economies continue to shift from mass production to "knowledge economy" occupations, countries have strong incentives to build the skills of their populations through higher education.

At the same time, the explosive growth of the talent pool raises an important question: 'Will the global labour market continue to absorb the increased supply of higher-educated workers in the future?'

Evidence from science and technology occupations - jobs emblematic of the knowledge economy - may provide some insights.

STEM in the spotlight again

On average across OECD countries, human resources in science and technology occupations (HRST) represented more than a quarter of total employment in 2010.

In Luxembourg, Sweden, Denmark, and Switzerland, HRST workers accounted for more than 40% of all employees, while in India, China, and Indonesia, they accounted for less than 10%.

More importantly, between 1998 and 2008, employment in HRST occupations increased at a faster rate than total employment in all OECD and G20 countries with available data.

The average annual growth rate was uniformly positive, ranging from 0.3% in China to 5.9% in Iceland. This consistently upward trend - and even the comparatively smaller shares of HRST occupations in fast-growing economies like China - signals that the demand for employees in this knowledge economy sector has not reached its ceiling.

Conclusions

Applied to the overall labour market, these findings suggest that individuals from increasingly better-educated populations will continue to have good employment outcomes, as long as economies continue to become more knowledge-based.

These findings also suggest that countries would be well-advised to pursue efforts to build their knowledge economies, in order to avoid skills mismatches and lower private and public returns on education among their higher-educated populations in the future.

The global talent pool has never been larger - and will continue to expand, with rapidly-growing G20 nations likely leading the way.

Source: OECD

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China and India to produce 40% of global graduates by 2020 - ICEF Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment

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The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has just released a new report, which is part of the Education Indicators in Focus series, looking at higher education graduates between the ages of 25 and 34 in OECD and Group of Twenty member countries - 42 countries in total.

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Research into the Economic Climate of the future and skills required for this environment.

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The Fourth Industrial Revolution is interacting with other socio-economic and demographic factors to create a perfect storm of business model change in all industries, resulting in major disruptions to labour markets. New categories of jobs will emerge, partly or wholly displacing others. The skill sets required in both old and new occupations will change in most industries and transform how and where people work. It may also affect female and male workers differently and transform the dynamics of the industry gender gap. The Future of Jobs Report aims to unpack and provide specific information on the relative magnitude of these trends by industry and geography, and on the expected time horizon for their impact to be felt on job functions, employment levels and skills.

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The Fourth Industrial Revolution is interacting with other socio-economic and demographic factors to create a perfect storm of business model change in all industries, resulting in major disruptions to labour markets. New categories of jobs will emerge, partly or wholly displacing others.

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An article describing the future workforce for young adults in Australia.