“To get to the future of work we have to first rewrite the rules of learning, and it is the responsibility of both sides to get there,” writes Manish Bahl. “Without fundamental recasting of how we think about human learning and skills development and effective collaboration, many individuals, communities and entire economies will be left behind.”

Excerpts from the Australian’s article:

“The onus on Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to prepare students for the future of work is more pressing now than ever. With technology rapidly changing the way we work, students will need to keep up with the expectations of their evolving prospective roles.

Both HEIs and businesses are slow to revamp their education and training models because they often don’t collaborate with each other, according to a recent Cognizant study. Most businesses (56 percent) and HEIs (72 percent) are still in the process of identifying the skills required to complete the work of the future, amid a rapidly changing skills landscape, the study reveals.

Businesses and HEIs need to correct this misalignment. If collaboration is not achieved, then businesses and HEIs risk adding to the skills gap that we are seeing in STEM fields, which contributes unnecessarily to the act of looking for talent offshore.

By collaborating with businesses and identifying skills needed, institutions can curate flexible and adaptive learning content that is updated continuously.  Such a collaborative relationship between HEIs and businesses would allow for the rapid identification of skills needed in the future.

But with the rapid change of skills needed in varying industries, how can businesses and HEIs streamline this hyper-personalised process? With the use of VR and AR technologies becoming more widespread, the number of applications in an educational context is growing. And we’ve already begun to see this occur in the education and corporate sectors.

With advanced technology available to foster a rapid learning environment for both students and employees, it’s up to businesses and HEIs to work together to unlock its full potential. With this mutual benefit, businesses and HEIs should be looking to bridge the gap.”

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This article first appeared in The Australian on March 13th. Reproduced with permission.