The learning country: Digital Transformation Skills Strategy

In late 2019, the Australian Industry and Skills Committee (AISC) established the Digital Transformation Expert Panel to 'provide advice on how Australia's vocational education and training (VET) system can most effectively respond to digital change underway across industry and its impact on the nation's workforce'. The Panel's advice is captured in its Digital Transformation Skills Strategy, which was considered by the AISC at its February 2021 meeting. The Panel believes that Australia's VET system is pivotal to optimising what technology offers our economy, the many industries it comprises and our workforce. There is, however, little time to get this right. One of the most insightful analyses [available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 139.702] on the impact of technology on Australia's workforce predicts that by 2034: (1) automation will displace 2.7m workers, 56 per cent of whom are male; and (2) technology will augment 4.5m workers, leading to a 15 per cent capacity uplift to Australian businesses.

The Panel is keen to emphasise that whilst digital transformation maybe synonymous with technology, it's those inherent human skills which can't be replicated by an algorithm that will future-proof our workforce and are now essential to build. It is why the Strategy is as much about growing our cognitive skills and general capabilities as it is about digital competence. With a guiding principle of 'leave no worker behind', the Strategy has five Focus Areas with a series of underpinning Action Points: (1) system settings; (2) industry leadership; (3) learner support services; (4) teaching and learning; and (5) training products.

Edited excerpt from publisher's website. Show less