A New Way - Three Insights

This is my 3rd and last article for 2020. (If you haven’t read my first two articles, please do. Otherwise you won’t know what Frodo is doing).

Maybe you’re a parent (or you know one) and your child is getting to that point where you need to start thinking and making a decision about what and where they will study after matric. (If you aren’t a parent, please read on too…)

If you’re like me, you may also have a hunch that things are not the same today as they were 10 or 20 (or 30) years ago in terms of college or university.

And you may also be wondering about how good the quality of education actually is? Are the lecturers really good? Or are they just ok, or worse? Will the degree really be accepted overseas and by whom?

Because at the end of the day, it is all about employment. Good, meaningful employment.

It is common knowledge now that unemployment figures in this country are poor.

And it got worse during Covid-19. Most reports suggest that as the new norm settles in, unemployment figures will remain poor or continue to worsen. They won’t get better and it seems to be universal.

So I have been thinking about this for a while and I want to share some important thoughts with you.

I have been involved in education and job placements for over 25 years and back in 2010 I ran South Africa’s largest private higher education organisation with over 13,000 students, placing them into full time employment upon graduation. For me, there is nothing more rewarding than seeing students graduate and enter into employment.

You see, once this happens, a new, self-sustainable mini-economy is created. You take a young adult, who is newly educated at tertiary level and they apply themselves in a working environment, or they start a new enterprise themselves, adding and creating value along the way. They, in themselves, are newly formed assets, contributing to the greater positive economic world. 

However, for the first time in my life I have seen something odd emerge in the education-employment space. There have been shifts happening that are creating a lot of uncertainty. A lot of what has been safe ground and common knowledge for decades is now under threat and as such, no longer reliable. You can sense the disruption.

These shifts are both local and global and have the potential to create havoc in the planning of a scholar’s future and their world of work.

The tricky thing that catches most people off guard though is the speed of disruption and for many it may feel “safer” to carry on doing what you as a parent did, i.e. choose a degree or a diploma, study for two to three years and (hopefully) there is a job on the other side.

Wow, even I get nervous just thinking about those odds.

But why do we do it? Why, in today’s uncertain times, and uncertain future, knowing that unemployment rates are escalating, knowing that a diploma or a degree has little to no guarantee of employment, knowing that everywhere you look, new technology is almost a common buzz term that’s being used as if it’s going to solve so many problems, when in fact you worry about how many jobs will be lost to AI, automation and the Blockchain. The articles are gaining momentum.

Many of us may sense that the job market is under threat. We can sense the change. We know people have and are going to lose jobs… more retrenchments, more job losses. I anticipate 2021 will not be (much) better than 2020.

So here’s the first Insight..

Despite universities and colleges producing graduates, year after year, unemployment is on the (rapid) rise. And I’m not just talking about uneducated unemployment. People with qualifications are also not finding work at the same rate as in previous years.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at the table below by Stats SA.

The statistics for 2019 show that between 31% and 48% of our youth aged under 24 with a degree or other Higher Education qualification is unemployed. And if all you have is matric, the odds are actually stacked against you of finding work.

But the most worrying number for me is the year on year 11,4% increase in unemployment for university graduates. Without starting to sound alarmist, and only if these numbers continue, then within four to five years from now half of all university graduates won’t find work. This equates to today’s grade 10s, 11s and 12s.

And these are pre-Covid-19 stats.

There is nothing to suggest that after we emerge from Covid-19, that the 2021 numbers are going to improve. In all likelihood, they’ll get worse, quicker.

But here’s the mental catch…

Do we really believe that once Covid-19 is over and once the vaccination is deployed worldwide, that the majority of working people who lost their jobs in 2020 will get them back again?

Maybe some will, especially where industries had to close, but I predict most will not.

A job bottleneck and a scramble for jobs will start to emerge when those people who lost their jobs in 2020 start applying for jobs (that they can do) and compete with (an increased number of) fresh graduates who are prepared to work for a lot less, just to be able to get a foot in the door.

But here’s the real reason why people who lost their jobs in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, won’t get them back.

…because the problem is not Covid-19 at all. All that Covid-19 has done is to speed up the inevitable.

Unemployment was already on the rise in many countries, and especially here in South Africa before 2020. Our political will, or lack of it, does not help either. Covid-19 was just the accelerator. It has accelerated the trend of new technology being adopted and used in our daily lives and at work, and in turn unemployment rose too but at a much quicker rate.

The real reason why people lost their jobs is directly or indirectly due to new technology.

The trend worldwide is that new technology is replacing human jobs. Period. The evidence is overwhelming. And we will continue to see more accelerators in the future, like Covid-20, an increased social distress and heaven forbid - a new kind of terrorism.

Industry just has to sit and wait for these events to unfold.

In addition, our institutions of higher learning are under immense pressure. Some people say they are sorely missing the mark of equipping graduates for the world of work.

I would even go as far to say that intelligence itself and the manifestations around knowledge ownership, as well as teaching and learning, has started to decouple from institutions of higher learning…

…and I believe that this shift has already started.

The big question though, is where is intelligence, teaching and learning going? Where will we go for information in the near future? Where will we learn skills? Who will assess our competence?

Sure, places of higher learning are not going to go anywhere soon, and the need for professional qualifications, with all its quality and standards, will remain with academic institutions. For now.

Maybe you yourself have had a hunch that the local quality of courses is not where it should be.

We have been analysing South African University rankings over the last 20 years and yes, almost all of them have slumped in global rankings. There is only one local university that has stood at the forefront and withstood global competition. Over the last 20 years despite an increase in quality from international universities, this one local university stood firm. UCT has managed to hover around the 150 mark in global rankings. The rest are typically in the 400-1000 region. And for the record, I have absolutely no affiliation to UCT.

Insight 2…

Leading on from this point, the second insight is that there is an increase in the number of scholars opting out of traditional college or university courses and instead embarking on company-built skills content and landing immediate jobs simply because they are 100% geared to add value to the company from day 1.

Most of the courses are online, cost very little and can be completed in less than a year. Amazon Web Services is a case in point. You can choose one of their 4 streams in cloud services, get certified in less than 6 months, and off you go…

Once big data, analytics and blockchain get their teeth into the nuts and bolts of higher learning and once AI starts to understand who you are, what you can do, and what’s best for you from a career point of view, after having analysed you, your habits, strengths, passions, weaknesses and personal set of circumstances, then the best fit-for-purpose learning paths will emerge.

We may also see Blockchain companies grabbing onto education. Already, it makes sense to keep results, quality and content on some form of distributable ledger, free from fraud and corruption. 

Blockchain is anti-forgery, anti-corruption, anti-fraud and anti-theft. And it’s anti-insurance.

(I believe that Blockchain is anti-insurance because it exponentially increases trust and evidence. As a result, dispute, mistakes, loss and alteration is negated. Combined with AI, Blockchain will dramatically alter how we live. For example, when self-driving cars become mainstream on our roads, all linked to a blockchain network, accidents will dramatically decrease. People will quickly realise that they don’t need big insurance premiums to cover them for what-ifs. AI will save lives, and money. And jobs).

Expect to see an increase in creative advertising from insurance companies “highlighting” trust aspects associated with new tech. Hmmmm…..

So, coming back to my main point of earlier…intelligent, relevant content, along with intelligence itself is moving to big tech. It’s moving to the Googles, the Microsofts, the LinkedIns…the Amazons, the Facebooks, etc. These companies are growing at unprecedented rates into new industries. Big tech companies are moving into food, distribution, transportation, energy, medicine, and yes you guessed it, education.

It makes sense though, doesn’t it? They desperately need skilled people in the skills they want, that they need. And the best way to guarantee this is to build their own learning content. Elon Musk can’t hire skilled people fast enough to design, program, build and test the next generation of autonomous vehicles, hence the new Tesla Academies. (Yes, even Elon still needs humans. For now.)

My colleagues and I have done a lot of work in the “ed-tech career” space over the years and we have developed great roadmaps for youngsters to embark on. I’m happy to share all this information with you for free, alongside a couple of free assessments too, to make sure your child embarks on the best course, suited to his/her profile, aptitude and interests. But more of that later because I need to share one more thing with you…

Insight 3…

The last one is always the biggest one.

There is one insight that will dwarf the other two. There is one significant change happening that has just started to take shape and it is about to explode and have one of the biggest impacts on employment we’ve seen for a long time.

Before I tell you what this is, let me give you a brief background on something important.

With the advent of social interconnectedness, people are able to share thoughts, ideas, feelings, products and services more and quicker than ever before.

Often people have come up with ideas on how to make money. They’re convinced it’s the next big thing. It’s a new service or a new product.

But the reality is that it has become harder and harder to monetise a new idea. Chances are that ten people in India or China have already thought about your idea and also built it! And even if you do manage to find something that is new, it is just a matter of time before someone comes along and automates your idea. And at a tenth of the price.

It’s really tough to develop new concepts and products in today’s world but even harder to monetise them, simply because it’s easy to copy things these days - if you can digitise it, you can copy it.

Back in 2017 I attended the Singularity University Global Summit in San Francisco and one of the key takeaways from its co-founder, Peter Diamandis, was that if you can digitise something, you can copy it. It took a while for me to get my head around the concept but basically what he was saying is that whatever you see and experience in the real world, the analogue world, once you figure out how to convert the concept into the digital world, then within a very short space of time, everyone can get one because it becomes incredibly easy and (probably) free to copy. It’s like copying and pasting words in Word.

One simple example is a GPS. It was only just over a decade ago that people were buying GPS systems, sticking them onto their car’s dashboard and navigating around town. And then within a year, Google changed the whole landscape by introducing Google Maps.

Nowadays you would be hard pressed to find someone who goes out to buy a GPS device. Most people download and install one (for free) in less than 20 seconds. One billion people now use Google Maps. Google digitised the old GPS, and now it’s free. Well, nearly free but that’s another story.

The point is that the thousands of people who worked for GPS companies around the world making GPS systems, didn’t get the chance to carry on building those 1 billion GPS devices.

Instead, 50 people built Google Maps. 1000’s out, 50 in.

So the trick today is not to build things from scratch or come up with a new fresh product, but to rather “glue” existing smaller things and ideas together.

This is the big disruptor that is upon us.

It’s about taking lots of existing “Lego pieces” and imagining a new structure and then joining them together. It’s not about making new Lego pieces.

Over the last 15 years, there have been so many apps, services and products that have been built that the job now is to sit and think how to join them together to create something meaningful that will help society.

In practical terms it’s about the ability to take existing technologies, even if it came out last week, and build something new.

The people at Uber did this years ago. They didn’t build the Uber app from scratch, they glued together tens of existing apps and …hey presto! Ok, they did build some new apps too, but the point is that the bulk of the smaller parts of the Uber app that you see today, was in existence already.

Wouldn’t it be great to learn how to do this? Wouldn’t it be great to be shown where to go and who to speak to, to learn about this new way of learning and working? It’s the way of the (near) future. Wouldn’t it be great for someone to introduce you to the right people at some of the world’s best companies?

And who are these companies? Apart from Amazon and Google, who else is building learning content and their own in-house academies of learning?

Alan and myself, the founders of edvi.io and soon to be launched FutureProofMe, have spent years researching this space, looking at trends, looking at useful skills, especially digital skills, working alongside formal institutions of learning and placing people in front of employers. Along with our team of educational and career strategists, educational psychologists, personal educational trainers and technology partners we provide a free initial service of assessing a scholar’s or student’s aptitude and goals, and providing an educational and career step-by-step roadmap on how to get from where they are now, to where they ultimately want to end up.     

The challenge to keep in mind is that sending your child off to college or university to study a “traditional” qualification just doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s much more complex than that. Whether your child is in Grade 10, 11 or 12, at college or university, or even if you work, our information is valuable.

We can take any current situation and map out your best path. We’re not saying you shouldn’t consider university or college. Far from it. It’s just that if you solely bank on a diploma or degree to get you into that career area, you may just be disappointed.

Ok, I’ve written a lot.

But I do sincerely hope that this report has highlighted some really important points to keep in mind when deciding on further study.

To summarise, here are my three insights ...

1.    Unemployment will continue to rise – even for graduates.

2.    More and more people will seek digital skills routes to employment from tech companies themselves, by-passing traditional and formal tertiary education.

3.    Analyse and then “glue” existing apps, products and services rather than building something from scratch.

We use some really advanced thinking in our planning, we’ve partnered with some of the world’s leading technology companies and crunch data to build bespoke skill-sets and roadmaps. From early 2021, we will launch FutureProofMe. I am quite excited.

For more information or to say hi, send an email to me at [email protected]