16 Trends: # 15 from preparation to adaptability

When I first started teaching in the 1980s I spent quite a lot of time talking to my high school students about getting ready for the world of work.  Society expects that schools will turn out students who are employable - and yet with a rapidly changing job market this can be difficult to do.  One thing we do know, however, is that the future will be multidisciplinary - whole new industries are coming into being by combining various disciplines and industries such as bioinformatics and telematics are ones that didn't exist several years ago.  There is increasing competition for well-educated and flexible people, who can trade in their old skills for new (for example librarians becoming cybrarians).

We are also becoming more mobile.  People are easily able to work from home.  I have started teaching online courses as well as face to face ones, for example.  I can carry my "office" with me wherever I go and last year even tried running an online course from my mobile phone while holidaying in Goa.

Trends 1 and 2 looked a population.  With an aging population there are shifts in students, workers and jobs.  Retired people in their "third age" are just as likely to want to pursue education, or second careers.  An elderly population will also place more demand on several caring and medical professions.  Some weeks ago we looked at What If scenarios in an R&D meeting.  One question that was asked was this:

What if ASB was Pre-K through Life, instead of Pre-K through Grade 12?

An interesting question, especially in the light of schools and colleges becoming centres for continuing education, training and re-training.

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