“There are many lessons here, some of which apply directly to you as a learning leader.
1. Educational institutions need and want closer relationships with business to drive their own transformation. You, as an employer, should meet with local universities and schools, and help them understand your workforce needs.
2. Massive open online courses will transform education. You, as a corporate learning leader, can access these courses at little to no cost.
3. We can’t wait for schools and universities to build the skills we need. Learning investments are more important than ever, and this means a strong focus on talent-driven learning programs, talent management, assessment and developing a total corporate learning culture.
4. Skill development expertise is the new arsenal for business success. If you don’t take the time, spend the money or learn how to build world-class development programs, you will not be able to compete. There is no real war for talent; there is a war for skills, and there’s no better way to win the war than to build your arsenal internally.” from http://clomedia.com/articles/view/the-educational-mismatch
The combative language is awful and highlights that educational transformation is being quite rapidly co-opted by the short-term and short-sighted economic rationalism of corporations. What happens when their needs change? What happens to the expertise in subjects that lose short-term favour – when an archaeology or philsophy program is closed somewhere how will it ever be re-established?
This is dangerous rhetoric indeed and everyone with children and a vision of the future needs to look at what conditions will map to a positive future.
Tie this with the push from big publishing to start dictating and controlling educational delivery and you start to see the potential for a very uncritical, politically amoral and market driven edcuation systems… starting with changes in higher ed and slowly infiltrating K-12…
Revisit this documentary (The Corporation) if you need reminding of just how indifferent those entitities are to ther needs of the world and its people:
Related articles
- Putting Learning in Collective Hands: A New Democracy? (fitnessbootcampsuk.wordpress.com)
- The death or rebirth of universities? (bvd2013.wordpress.com)
