How do we bridge 21st-century skills gaps in emerging markets and help billions of people around the world get better jobs?
There is a growing gap in the demand and supply of skills in job markets. Today, 1.3 billion people have competencies that mismatch the activities they perform at their job, estimated to grow to 1.4 billion by 2030 - the majority of which is in the emerging markets (Puckett et al., 2020).
On February 25, 2021, Funzi gathered learning advocates from around the world to discuss the future of learning in emerging markets. Phuong Tran, Marketing manager at Funzi and the moderator of the event set the stage with a bold statement: “With this event, we’ve set out to be radical. To be disruptive. Because if we don’t radically change the way the world learns, we fail.” What followed was a lively discussion on the current state of personal and career skills development, as well as the proposed solutions on how to bridge 21st-century skills gaps.
Here’s what we learned at Funzi's first-ever digital event.
Learners need the opportunity to take charge of their own learning
There is a high demand for self-learning on mobile devices as learners engage in the resources that they feel are best suited for their own learning development. People want to enhance their skills sets to become more employable. As a result, critical life skills around employability, soft skills, negotiation, sales, business management, etc. are particularly in high demand. Deep personalization of learning journeys is needed to bring education or learning as a service to life.
The “Learn-on-the-go” scenario has been identified as being key in the future of learning, according to the Back to the Future of Education : Four OECD Scenarios for Schooling book. In this scenario, learning takes place anywhere, anytime and the distinction between formal and informal learning is going to fade as people will use learning opportunities and channels when they see the need to upgrade and improve their skills. This is especially true in the emerging countries that simply do not have the time or resources to develop their traditional education systems.
Education service providers need to incorporate career guidance in mobile learning using positive psychology with a combination of content, pedagogy, and delivery that focuses on building trust, empowering the learner to trust themselves, and building their self-esteem.
Education as a service can only be effective with collaboration within the ecosystem
Learning and media consumption are merging. “Accessibility and quality of education resources for students of all ages is becoming a really critical consideration and discussion point for mega-media companies internationally” Narriman Ajdiri-Beim, Founder of The Media Atlas. Education is becoming more commoditized as a service and it is bringing mass learning capability via mobile phones to improve the skill set of people around the world. The mobile phone is one of the most important devices with the potential to be the greatest LMS on the planet. With all the education inequalities that exist globally, Edtech can achieve learning access for all.
Edtech investors have two roles in the industry. The first is a philosophical understanding that education needs to exist for everybody and secondly to invest in entities that have the objective to make this a reality. The affordability of education as a service is crucial and can only be achieved at the intersection of technology, education, and creative financing. Therefore, investors need to promote innovations that bring technology and finance together.
The reality of investment in Edtech is, however, not always effective. “In South Africa, big investments are being made into education and training but the return on the investment translating into employment and increased income generation for young people isn’t happening” Robyn Pretorius, Learning experience designer and Project lead at Harambee youth employment accelerator. For this reason, a more coordinated approach is needed within the ecosystem.
Partnerships in the education / learning ecosystem are critical in the quest for equitable and accessible learning for everyone. Reducing barriers such as high data costs, can only be achieved if mobile operators are on-board with the vision of equal learning opportunities for all. “There is a strong correlation between connectivity and economic opportunity” Brent Davidoff, Youth employment accelerator at Harambee. Is there a future in sight with a data-free education or learning system?
Change the system that is teaching to the past, not the future
Educational attainment rates are low, particularly in low-income countries. The traditional ways in which educational achievement is measured are not telling us enough. Even with people attaining a certain level of qualification, the quality of the skills attained by those people is enormously different. Is education delivering on the skills that we need?
Lifelong learning is not the basis for the design of the current education system. Through colonisation, western countries have imposed a top-down governance model on many emerging economies. The decisions on education and learning need to be put in the hands of communities, families, and learners themselves and not rely on the top-down governance systems. Emerging countries have the benefit of not having the strong legacy of education embedded in the bureaucracy that the developed countries have. They, therefore, have a very important advantage in modernizing learning.
There is a significant shift in the type of skills that people need. While the demand for a lot of the skills needed are technical (this will remain constant), the need for cognitive skills, systems skills, and complex problem-solving skills has increased significantly.
Skills for employment are important for income generation and therefore the focus of skills development is often on employability. There are, however, important non-economic outcomes that need to be considered. For example, statistics show that the level of skills a person has will have an enormous impact on their health, in turn affecting the wellbeing and sustainability of communities. The return on investment of learning should be re-examined to not only look at the increase of salary after obtaining a qualification but should also include the person’s ability to be a system’s thinker and the ability to bring society to a higher level (an impact return). “We propose the design of Skillversities that challenge all assumptions, incorporating mindset change as their basis and foundation” Sandeep Aneja, Founder of Kaizenvest.
For decades, it has been said that technology will change the way the world learns. If there has been an accelerated development in the mobility of the music industry, why is the change so slow in the education sector? It's taken some time for publishers to move with the times but learning micro-modules on devices is the future for many publishers if they want to meet consumer demands. The golden age of physical resources (such as print) is over and the demand from the current and next generation of learners will drive the evolution of learning.
Adopt a learning approach that integrates technology to address the skills challenge in emerging countries
The UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 4 on education has ambitious objectives to be achieved by 2030. “The problem is that we are not making any progress and the pandemic has even put us further behind in the road towards the achievement of SDG4” Dr. Dirk Van Damme, Senior counsellor for education and skills, and Head of the Innovation and measuring progress division (IMEP) at the OECD.
A strategy that only focuses on schooling is not going to be able to tackle the skills challenge in emerging countries. With an institutional approach, the investments are simply too high, progress is too slow, and equity issues persist. With a schooling strategy, the bottom of the pyramid will remain out of school and will not be well served. If we really want to make progress with an in-formal and non-formal learning approach, the support of technology is needed.
Technology should not replace learner communities
Some people may argue that it is counterintuitive to learn human interaction skills with technology. However, technology will never, and should never, replace the interaction between the learner and teacher or community of learners because they are the strongest part of any learning. Technology should therefore accelerate and enable learners to gain access to the skills to learn more efficiently.
When people shift their attitudes towards learning they can have an impact on those around them. “They socialize their communities into spaces of learning and hustling. Spaces where young people are the solution, they are empowered, and they have what it takes… The biggest lesson we can learn from [our programme participants] is the strength and interconnectedness of not only the most robust and accessible technology but the human connectedness of social learning.” Robyn Pretorius
A mindset change to shift the focus of learning
Some of the most important work that needs to be done now is advocacy in communities to shift the culture of learning in such a way that young people see the value of being a self-empowered learner. The momentum of the learning process starts with a shift in attitude that is driven by intrinsic motivation.
Learners operate in an attention economy where education service providers need to be aware of the level of competition for attention. Therefore, service providers need to consider elements such as the length of time spent learning, the tone of voice used, and the feeling of connectedness to others, in order to keep learners engaged and to keep retention high.
Most people still do not know the difference between skills and knowledge. The two are mutually inclusive as there is no skill without content/knowledge. Knowledge alone cannot meet job market needs, skills alone do not exist, and knowledge alone cannot do the job. The two need to be combined.
Entrepreneurship skills will help address the imbalance in the demand and supply of skills
Because education is often specialised and therefore ring-fenced by curricula, territory, or age group, it can be challenging to educate at mass. Categorizing learning by skill sets or themes allows learning demands to be met by removing these barriers.
One key set of skills that are needed in emerging markets is those related to the theme of entrepreneurship. New jobs need to be created in order to meet the high demand for jobs globally, so does the demand for new businesses and innovations that will house job creators and job seekers.
Encourage the reskilling of the employed
Employers still play a critical role in determining the skills demanded in a workforce as they define the jobs needed. They will always lean towards more technical skills, however, a (soft) skilled person transforms a job. “A person is hired because of hard skills but is fired because of soft skills.” Dr Dirk Van Damme.
Giving people that are already employed the opportunity to reskill themselves in their areas of expertise and passion will ultimately increase the happiness of the individual and their community. Learning is not a path right to employment and the individual’s intrinsic motivation needs to be nurtured even after they have entered the workforce.
Education is about somebody else’s dreams, learning is about your own dreams
Intrinsic motivation is a critical component of the future of learning. One of the key outcomes of education and learning is that it gives people agency. A social environment needs to be created to make skills useful and the most important driver of making skills useful is the individual.
There is often more focus on the functional skills needed to enter the labour market, often resulting in self-actualization and aspiration being overlooked. If people are given the opportunity to be seen as having something to contribute to society, they flourish.
“If we don’t learn to unlearn the bad things that we have learnt, this life and the humane life will go under. We have reached the limits of growth on this planet and we need to learn new things that make us more sustainable as humanity.” Aape Pohjavirta, Founder of Funzi.
Final thoughts from the learning advocates
The future of learning is…
Universal. No matter your age or background or socio-economic status. It has to be something that you can access readily at your fingertips. Narriman Ajdiri-Beim
Empowerment. Giving people the opportunity and incentivising them to take their own fate in their own hands and to see learning as a way to improve their lives. It’s about agency and self-control and improving your situation, your family, and community. Dr. Dirk Van Damme
In the present. Finding the solutions are within our reach. It's exciting, personal, accessible, and life changing. Robyn Pretorius
Learn & Earn. Earning an income and earning experience. It has intrinsic value to the learner. Brent Davidoff
A fine balance of continuously discovering. It is not static. Sandeep Aneja
Mobile because all humans are mobile, not limited to physical mobility but also the mobility of the mind. Mobile technology gives us for the first time in the history of humanity, an opportunity to gain access to the skills that we need to learn the skills that the planet needs. Aape Pohjavirta
“The sense of ubuntu, born out of Africa, where around the watering hole, all animals go and drink in peace. The lions don’t eat the antelopes when they come to the watering hole. Learning is the watering hole of our future. Let us all empower that.” Aape Pohjavirta.
The outcome of Funzi’s The Future of Learning event was a powerful testament to the passion of the learning advocates that joined us. The discussion proved what we already know: a radical shift in how learning is done is urgently needed.
You can watch the full event on our Facebook page here.
We look forward to continuing to have discussions like this in an event series for industry, learning advocates, and learners. Sign up for our newsletter here and follow our social media pages to stay up to date with future events.
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