Humans Wanted Report: The Coming Skills Revolution

This resource sheds light on a very current issue in our education system and is very useful for post-secondary, public and private sectors. Many graduates are over qualified for their jobs and many unemployed youths feel they haven’t got the training needed for the jobs that are available. Schools are wanting to introduce “digital fluency” in the classroom to prepare students for these future changes ( I've noticed this in many of the public schools I've worked at) but many lack the resources like qualified staff. This resource discusses adding 2.4 million jobs in Canada over the next 4 years. Stating that all of which will require a new mix of skills. This article breaks jobs types into what they call “clusters”. They discussed how with skills training and opened minded employees can make these “career pivots” connecting different career types, (clusters) allowing them to navigate the job market more effectively and have access to better jobs. I couldn't agree more. In education, we are taught phrases like “continued growth mindset”. This resource shows us that we need to teach students that they need to apply this to how they think of jobs and their future. That they will most likely need to learn new skills to navigate the job landscape and not get caught between the cracks. A resource like this allows us to critically view our current education model and give us a new way to think of our purpose as educators and invites us to question and examine our practice so we can provide the best opportunities for our students. A very good resource I would love to see this in every classroom. 

This is a resource that could be both useful and valuable to the broad community of (especially Canadian) educators...and also to learning technology specialists and venturers. In summary, it is a broad-based research study (taken from all across Canada) that gives a snapshot of the current state of how our education system is preparing young people with the skills they need to be effective in the workforce. It generally gives our current post-secondary education systems a failing grade because of their focus on giving out 'credentials' instead of actually developing skills and giving students real-word experience that will transfer directly to the workforce. This point is brought strongly home using a sampling of case-studies that describe the education and career paths of many individuals. They each emphasize that there was a "career pivot" (sometimes multiple) at some point in the path of the employee when they had to go back and receive some more technical or practical training to be able to actually compete in their chosen field. What makes this report expecially useful for educators is that it doesn't only diagnose the problems, but it's actually quite insightful at proposing solutions. It gives a series of "what if" questions as the beginning that help educators and venturers to start to imagine how things *could* be if we were able to start thinking outside the box as we plan for the future. Then the concluding pages give more concrete steps for actions that can be taken to help rectify the problem. Overall, a very good resource - and it's presented in an accessible, visually appealing way that makes for an easy read. Using these approaches could definitely help to drive more professional success in my field.

Marc, We used this resource at our school to justify some of the changes we have made to our program. I think they mirrored their report from the World Economic Forum report https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-future-of-jobs-report-2018. This report has a lot more detail and the website has many other reports and articles on initiatives they are taking to modernize systems and processes.

Thanks for sharing this report Marc. This is something I have thought about quite a bit myself, and what we can do as a society to better prepare young learners for real world. It seems that so many young grads feel surprised and overwhelmed by what they are faced with in the real world. I especially liked the proposed commitment to ensuring that 100% of grads have a practical work placement of some sort. The report also highlights that its not about being an expert coder, but rather having fundamental digital skills. I recently learned about the changes that Canada Learning Code (formerly Ladies Learning Code) have made in the last year in breaking into coding education for educators (with their code mobile), and bringing this various communities accross all provinces in Canada. Their programs are broken down into simple steps. designed to be teachable for people who know very little about tech and coding, and their goal is to bring a basic level of digital literacy to all, rather than focusing on making kids and teachers coding pros. With financial support from the Canadian Government and several organizations, they received enough funding to make this a priority so it will be interesting to see what strides that this organization, and others like it, can make in better preparing our youth for the future of work.

This report highlights the need for education reform and reiterates many of the ideas that we have already heard of in the last decade: 1. Knowing content is not enough. 2. Stellar grades in school does not always equal success on the job. 3. Schools are not preparing students to thrive in the future, but in the past. 4. Companies are now changing hiring practices to reflect the need for critical thinkers, ability to learn on the job, resilience, and adaptability. 5. Automation is real and imminent. These ideas are now strengthened with data from Statistics Canada, post-secondary institutions across Canada, and various companies across a multitude of fields. This report is very useful for K-12 teachers, counselors and administration as it is calling for us to build better programming in our schools. We are already seeing this begin at the provincial level with BC's new curriculum that asks educators to stop assessing content and start assessing skills. As an example, the report highlights the importance of critical thinking and collaboration skills, both of which are now part of the curricular competencies across multiple subjects. At the K-12 level, we are seeing teachers implement more inquiry and project-based learning. These new practices have just started taking off in the last two or so years; I would be interested to see a follow up report to see how effective our changing classrooms are. The report does oversimplify what youth today need (skills over content) and is too harsh on post-secondary institutions. It is unfair to say that formal education give students little return, when formal education is often the ticket to on the job training for those critical skills. Many skills cannot be learned in a classroom because a classroom fails to create authentic scenarios to teach skills. Jobs ARE the authentic scenarios to teach skills, but one cannot get a job without the knowledge base that universities provide. Yes it is imperative that youth today have strong critical thinking and collaboration skills, but these cannot be developed without having something to critically think and collaborate about. Yes, a doctor who cannot clearly communicate with their patients is ineffective, but a doctor that can talk up a storm but doesn't know their medicine is worse. The report claims that a person can switch careers by simply developing a few specific skills, but this is an oversimplification as well. It is more accurate to say that a person can switch careers within their own field (Plumber to drone technician? Ok. Electrician to surgeon? No, not without years of content learning). There is a place for content, and there is a place for skills. We cannot improve our education by spending time debating which is more important. They're both important. Instead of focusing on a complete reform on our education system, we need to focus on how to build and improve existing programs. We are great at teaching content, how do we also be great at teaching skills without taking away from content? As the report highlights, co-op education has been proven to be highly effective in preparing youth for the changing job market today. Such a program could be a part of any degree, including K-12 education. Instead of two months off for summer, why not two months of co-op experience? This report is useful in highlighting the need for change in our education system, but not useful for telling educators what that change should look like; it highlights the problems without providing solutions. I would recommend this as a starting point, for schools to start reflecting and ask questions to move forward. The one message from the report that is indisputable is that the job market continues to change quickly and that anyone who denies this will be left behind.

Initially, the report seems to be a fairly broad summary of what many people in the industry already know. There is a common phrase in education, that we are teaching students for jobs that have not even been created yet. However the report focuses in on the skills aspect of human resources and does an excellent job of addressing current trends and shortfalls. In particular, the report divides the skills into six distinct groups offering insight into each of these sectors. It offers the reader the opportunity to focus in on a group that is of most interest to them, and sample profiles are provided to help assist in this process. For people looking out into the future, of the six groups the crafters and doers are projected to have the highest tech disruption, and would provide a great new market for entrepreneurs. In addition to this interesting set of profiles, the report provides some good statistics on the workforce. The ages, diversity, and skill sets of the current work force. I would definitely be interested in seeing how these numbers change over time and whether or not the economy and our education system is doing an appropriate job of filling in the gaps. The report paints a generally positive outlook and presents Canada as a leader in the current transition to a future workforce, it highlights key programs and post-secondary schools in Canada that had helped shape our path forward. These I think are all areas that deserve more attention in a future report. I would certainly recommend this report to others; the presentation of the report is phenomenal and the addition of graphics and statistics makes the report more approachable. The research and reporting methodology is solid, having used both quantitative and qualitative methods. The report managed a lot of data and RBC claims the data represents nearly 2.4 million jobs in the next four years, which if true, is providing a really clear insight into the future job market.

Hey Marc - thanks for sharing! What are your thoughts on the skill clusters described on pages 18 and 19? The overall document was really strong and interesting, but the skill clusters left me questioning some of the thinking. The contrast between traditional jobs and 21st century jobs was an awkward/confusing mapping. For instance, "Providers" included veterinarians and child care providers in the traditional jobs, yet the related 21st century jobs listed social media managers and youTubers. I'm can't imagine that they are saying the jobs of vets and child care providers are going away, are they? On a positive note, I liked the graphic on page 12: "Projected Skills Demand...." Listening, thinking, reading listed as some of the top items warms my heart. However, I wonder how we reconcile such skills with a mobile device / youTube / nano-attention span culture (I exaggerate, but it does feel like attention spans are shrinking). If these are some of the key skills, I wonder if discussions about a digital divide are going to be less about access to technology and more about willingness and ability to develop such skills? Lee.