It is commonly assumed today that education is crucial for meeting the challenges concerning the futures of work. But education cannot make up for inadequacies in other policy domains that have caused and continue to cause declining job quality as well as mass unemployment and under-employment. We suggest that preoccupation with aspirational curriculum reforms like '21st century skills' and 'micro-credentials' promoted to achieve employment growth can be a distraction from what successful education systems can achieve. At their worst, they compromise the capacity for education to play what con
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It is commonly assumed today that education is crucial for meeting the challenges concerning the futures of work. But education cannot make up for inadequacies in other policy domains that have caused and continue to cause declining job quality as well as mass unemployment and under-employment. We suggest that preoccupation with aspirational curriculum reforms like '21st century skills' and 'micro-credentials' promoted to achieve employment growth can be a distraction from what successful education systems can achieve. At their worst, they compromise the capacity for education to play what constructive role it can play in meeting the challenges surrounding the futures of work. It is time for realism to inform the deliberations about education and the futures of work. It is time for education to be brought back into the debate as important in its own right and not as an auxiliary policy tasked with overcoming the flaws of other policy domains. This paper argues that while education cannot solve most problems concerning the futures of work, there can be no solution to these problems without quality, enduring institutions supporting education and occupational coherence in the labour market. This paper was commissioned by UNESCO as background information to assist in drafting the Futures of Education report to be published in 2021.
We present our argument in four parts: (1) Section One considers the context in which education will be operating for the foreseeable future; (2) Section Two highlights the significance of two currently neglected but crucial guiding concepts: labour demand and education as a distinctive domain. These concepts enable us to understand what education can and cannot do concerning the futures of work; (3) Section Three argues that at its best, education helps people master bodies of conceptual knowledge as well as relationships between bodies of knowledge, nurtures learning dispositions, and equips people with skills and capacities that support the common good. These qualities enable people to handle changing life courses and challenges arising from Artificial Intelligence (AI) and a world drowning in information; and (4) Section Four considers policy implications. It highlights the importance of building effective institutions: agile stability in education systems and new organisational forms for occupational citizenship in labour markets.
Edited excerpts from publication.
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