A Government Report On The Future of Work Highlights An Alarming Gap Parents Need To Know:
From: "Canada - A Learning Nation: A Skilled, Agile Workforce - Ready To Shape The Future"
Photo by Bernd Klutsch on Unsplash
Issue 17:
02.22.2023
At The LongRange, the goal is to create helpful content for parents on what they need to know about the future of work, learning, and career readiness. We do the reading and track the reports, events, and news that busy parents don't have time for - but need to know, so they can better inform their own decisions and priorities in terms of getting their kids best prepared for the future of learning, job readiness, career success - and satisfaction.
We're in this moment of a rapid and unprecedented rate of change, and it's happening on every front, from learning to jobs, how work looks, happens, and is compensated. And currently, what's clear is that no one person, organization, or expert knows what's ahead or how to prepare the next generation best to meet it.
The best approach for understanding and insights is looking across the landscape from different viewpoints and wisdom - and then taking a parenting lens to the material and distilling what's relevant for parents looking to understand how to best prepare their kids for the future of work and learning.
This week, it's a 53-page report from the Government of Canada: "Canada - A Learning Nation: A Skilled, Agile Workforce - Ready To Shape The Future," produced by the "Future Skills Council Members." Government reports are dense, dry, and overflowing with acronyms and earnest inclusion paragraphs. But hidden in them are beneficial insights into understanding economic and social trends and how key decision-makers see the issues, challenges, gaps, and pathways forward.
We did the reading. Here's what is relevant/interesting, and insightful for parents.
"It's about learning throughout our lives."
All their research, interviews, and findings point to the necessity of lifelong learning. Rapid and continuous change means individuals, households, and communities must prioritize lifelong learning to ensure economic competitiveness and sustainability. The Report recognizes that it's essential to set up the next generation with a mindset that actively moves past the old framework of learning and work training (which messages that critical skills are locked into place by the time we are in our 20s) to one that is ongoing, self-directed and looks to meet the market.
For parents and educators, the key is to help change the framework of learning and work. Show by example and share that workplace learning is an ongoing part of careers and, hopefully, something enjoyable. The message is that traditional skills upgrades and tune-ups are part of adulting, which means they will get to do and try many more jobs in their lifetime, making for richer adulthood if they can embrace the changes.
Making informed learning choices is currently impossible.
This is the most alarming takeaway. One of the key findings and recommendations from the Report is the need to help people (in this case, Canadians) to be able to make more informed choices regarding their education, learning, and upskilling options and pathways.
Most critically, the Council reports that doing this (confidently making choices on learning options and career readiness pathways) is much more complicated than anyone realizes. Trusted rankings or clarity on getting job-ready, reskilling, and re-training should be included. The people trusted to provide it (parents, educators, and counselors) generally don't have market-relevant insights.
And the result is a sense of uncertainty, overwhelm, and fear.
The Report calls for trusted access to reliable and timely market information to help people make informed decisions about the skill paths and upskilling providers who are most in demand and can give them personalized, credible pathways for learning that lead to employment.
Closing this gap is urgent, but it's unclear who or how this will happen - who owns the process and how it is verified and conveyed. As a result, making informed learning choices is incredibly challenging. If not impossible. A frightening state for all parents and guardians.
In the future, tools will likely be developed to create personalized pathways to in-demand skills and opportunities and take into account individual skills, experience, interests, goals, and personal characteristics. But this is still a hope, not something parents or educators can rely on for themselves or their kids.
One of the most impactful actions parents can take is to get involved in how these solutions are being crafted - whether in their workplaces, in the tech products they are creating and investing in, and by following and engaging in the public and their industry conversation and regulations around skills credentialing and accreditation.
Don't Rely On Counsellors.
The Report reported the urgent need to "disseminate skills information to those who develop and provide training and advice to Canadians."
In this sentence is the frightening reality that is overwhelming the "experts" advising students, parents, guardians, and job seekers about education and training are often much more removed from timely market information and an awareness of the different pathways and programs they should - or probably would like to be in. It's the downstream impact of the more significant lack of trusted information. But an unnerving one since the people being impacted are students and graduates looking for their on-ramps to in-demand work but unsure of how or who to turn to. The best thing parents can do is track what's happening and the options. Because right now, even experts or those whose job is to advise on these issues are limited in what they know.
Canada is excited to watch how it approaches national reskilling and upskilling. The combination of an existing educated population, the economic urgency of moving energy workers into sustainable and high-paying jobs, and closing the skills gap - the cultural openness to working alongside government and government bodies means that it could begin to address these information gaps in skills and employment pathways in a genuinely innovative and impactful way.
And one that can be a global learning opportunity for other countries, cities, and communities. For parents outside of Canada, watching for tools and resources that will unbundle jobs by skills or review training platforms will be insightful - but for the moment, the key lesson is to keep doing your reading and research.