The Future of Education: Lessons in Uncertainty
Alain Dehaze
Chairman and Board Member | Senior Advisor | Investor | Transformation Leader | Ex-CEO The Adecco Group | ESG | Driven by People, Purpose and Impact
Yesterday, at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos I had the great honour to join a public session debate to discuss about the “Future of Education”. Other panellists included Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education and former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Johann N. Schneider-Ammann, President of the Swiss Confederation and Federal Councillor of Economic Affairs, Education and Research, Angela Hobbs Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy University of Sheffield and Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia.
Indeed, education is the first main factor to ‘Master the Fourth Industrial revolution’, and should be among the top priorities for all countries and businesses. Today in the world, 200 million people are unemployed and 1 in 2 is at risk due to the higher sophistication of automation. At the same time, about 8 million vacancies across the USA and Europe do not get filled due to skills shortages. The fourth Industrial Revolution will bring new jobs into the labour market. But to match the demand, new skills and professional profiles will be required. This is why talent attraction, education and digital upskilling are sorely needed.
The Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI) 2015-16 (https://www.adecco.com/industry-insights/gtci.aspx), which we presented January 19th in Davos together with INSEAD and Human Capital Leadership Institute of Singapore, highlights the key value of international talent mobility and hyper-connectivity. Thanks to new technologies, competition for jobs has gone global: today, not only do skilled employees move to where work opportunities are open, but work can move where talent is available. Continuous upskilling is one of the key to compete on the global market. At the same time, influenced by technological opportunities and by an economic scenario where volatility and flexibility are key, the new generations have developed a distinct attitude: millennials and the workers of tomorrow are increasingly independent, and place greater emphasis on purpose and continuous development in their job choices. If they want to attract the best talent, countries must invest in knowledge hubs, and companies must seriously focus on training and talent development. Companies should also invest in technologies and hyper-connectivity, and boost digital upskilling. They must develop inter-cultural environments that encourage networking, flexibility and mobility between countries. The potential benefits for both workers and companies are enormous: better trained, more competent, happier and more fulfilled people; better retention, innovation and productivity for companies.
But what kind of education is required? Formal education is fundamental, but is only one of the levers and talent development must be broadened beyond academic qualification. Countries that rank high in the GTCI, such as Switzerland, Canada, Austria and the Netherlands, invest in lifelong learning and in vocational training and growth opportunities that are linked to practical professional experience. For young people, these often take the shape of apprenticeship schemes. Countries need to implement talent development strategies that are guided by the concept of ‘employable skills’. Too many countries produce talent that does not correspond to the needs of the economy. Governments, educational systems and companies are responsible as a whole and need to work closely together to develop educational programmes able to shape the workforce of tomorrow, for the benefit of all.
Together, it is now time to take concrete actions. In 2015, beyond supporting the Nestlé Alliance for Youth, the Adecco Group stepped up to a higher level by joining the European Alliance for Apprenticeships (EAfA) and committing to 5,000 apprenticeships in Europe by 2017. And in 2016, together with the Global Apprenticeship Network (GAN), we will work on boosting youth employability and offering work-based training opportunities to help fight youth unemployment and skills mismatch.
General Manager
8 年Great answer Alain Dehaze about the arguments given by Mr. Garcia about your article. It teaches us why you are the CEO of a huge company and how to handle wisely different point of views.
I think everything is about seeing education as a lifelong way to close the gap between what people do and what they want to achieve. By encouraging education, we enable employees to develop themselves in the company, and this perfectly a subject of human resources, precisely because employees aren't only a mean of production.
Managing Director at Applied Viability - AV Group
8 年Definitely, this is a growing concern. Are the universities refining their standard profiles accordingly? I agree it can't be fixed overnight, although it is required talk about listening all parties...... time zone matters to me.
Chairman and Board Member | Senior Advisor | Investor | Transformation Leader | Ex-CEO The Adecco Group | ESG | Driven by People, Purpose and Impact
8 年Thank you, M.Garcia. I appreciate your interest and It is always an opportunity to learn from everyone and share opinions. This is complex, of course, and all these issues can’t be fixed overnight. But there are steps we can take for sure to improve the situation and this is why our Group is working on finding solutions and bringing a contribution. With best regards,
EN BUSCA ACTIVA COMO REP. DE VENTAS INDUSTRIALES, O PREVENTAS DE INGENIERIA.
8 年Dear Mr. Alain Dehaze, I appreciate your kind consideration, although, I hope you wont take me the wrong way, by any means I am trying to demerit you, although, your belief is only personal, it is not a rule of law, or something to observe, your particular belief over a truth is only your faith, as well as your particular point of view over a fact is only your respectable opinion. 73 million sure is a big number, but are they still studying? Are they graduates looking for job? with all due respect Mr. Dehaze, wherever there are numbers involved, therein lies the possibility of distorting its meaning to our convenience; See, I live in Monterrey, the most industrialized city in the whole México, we have excellent public and private Universities , and yet, every day, for the past three years, I have seen hundreds if not thousands of job vacancies, where an aprox. of 20% correspond to IT, I haven’t seen none requiring especial degrees or NASA type jobs, but a great confusion in regards of digital marketing and on line sales matters. Conclusion: Skill scarcity is a fallacy, it intents to transfer the guild on us the people, as if we are the people, and blame it on our lack of studies, lack of skill, lack of interest, and even worst, on our lack of manhood as we don’t fight enough, No way, reality is we lack of a special breed of skilled entrepreneurs, because current ones lack on skill and creativity to make profitable business which could demand work from humans, not from robots, today we have a very greedy class of businessmen, and a cast of submissive recruiters, who act as accomplices rather than as talent seekers; Hate to be rude, but box checking is not professional, therein lies the second biggest problem MISMATCHES, not lack of skills or qualifications, always hiring fishes to climb threes, because comes cheaper. Remember "The great depression" in the USA? There were a huge unemployment, and I wonder if it was because of the lack of ability? or because that the money was grabbed idle without producing anything? Make no mistake, ever since the industrial revolution came to be, the Owner of the factory needed labor force, there HR was created to manage and supply man force, hence arose the technical schools and the middle upper, to meet the demands of the employers, and it is OK, not a problem, there is nothing to be ashamed, industry along with HR did created the majesty of whatever we have and enjoy today, not a doubt, but everything under the sun has to change for the better. but let us recognize the fact that today, there is a lot of unemployment, hunger, hate, inequality, and not science, not religion, not money, not commerce has solve it yet in hundreds of years, so ,perhaps, we should stop caring that much for the few rich people’s interest that rule over more than 73 millions guys, don’t you think? Thank you very much for your attention. Leave you my best regards.