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Sixty percent of jobs that exist in 2030 are still unknown.
This was a comment that we heard during several talks at the recent Web Summit. But if this is the expectation, how can we prepare our education for this? By becoming lifelong learners, was the answer. Because if you do not continue to learn, your job will eventually face a dead end. This blog will summarise a discussion about the definition of lifelong learning and how this concept is currently applied in education.
Unesco's mission is to facilitate lifelong learning
Unesco’s representative Mmantsetsa Marope explained Unesco’s mission to facilitate a learner to become a lifelong learner. These lifelong learners should no longer only study the traditional 3 R’s (reading, writing, arithmetic), but should also be educated about finance, health, politics, sex and literacy while remaining competence oriented. On top of this lifelong learners need to be taught how to work with others to get results by using other’s competences. This will then in turn also augment the competences of a lifelong learner.
Top universities need to be agile to support lifelong learners
This mission helped to create an understanding. But how do top educational institutions help Unesco to create lifelong learners? The University of Sydney, which was represented by Vice-Chancellor and Principal Michael Spence, said that the education programmes developed by educational institutions need to be agile so that they can adapt to an evolving world. At the moment the programmes of the University of Sydney are focusing on a discipline, followed by a second major, an international perspective and the ability to work on real world problems in multi-disciplinary teams.
The future of lifelong learning is in hybrid education
Influential online companies like Coursera and Duolingo then added their perspective about how lifelong learners will study in the future. Their answer was clear and supported by both the Unesco and the University of Sydney: lifelong learners need physical and virtual learning. A hybrid education model will be the standard for the future, but will require curating to apply the online learning in the real world.
BizDevCorp can help support hybrid education
Here at BizDevCorp we support this perspective on hybrid learning. And we are happy to share our thoughts about how to curate our online courses for your real world.
