Collaboration for a more relevant education requires a Minister of Skills!

The Next Up competition, which asks 8th graders to come up with solutions to a number of real-life practical cases as part of their education, is now in its final stages. We, a number of leading representatives of the IT industry, are behind the competition, which is an example of how we from the knowledge-intensive industries are trying to find ways to make education at both primary and post-secondary level more relevant and engaging.

But what are the education system and responsible politicians doing to meet us in our efforts to attract young people - both boys and girls - to areas where there is already a pressing need for skills? Very little, in our opinion, and we call for a skills minister who is seriously interested in collaborating with working life!

The Swedish labor market is facing a fundamental matching problem: youth unemployment is at record levels, despite the fact that the formal education level of our young people has never been higher. This is at the same time as many industries - especially the knowledge-intensive ones - are in urgent need of skills.

There are also a number of indications that something is not right in schools and the rest of the education system. The PISA surveys show a sharp decline in the quality of school education. When it comes to higher education, even the quality measurement itself does not pass.

We believe that the problem is largely rooted in the lack of relevance that characterizes both primary education and traditional higher education. In the latter, we have a clear contrast with the emergence of higher vocational education, where the world of work and education authorities have found a winning formula. Students, employers and educators all have a strong commitment and the statistics speak for themselves: nine out of ten students get a job after graduation.

Universities, with their focus on scholarship and research, have a partly different role from higher vocational education. But for the many students who feel over- or under-educated, or who drop out of education, it does not help that the role of higher education is relevant in principle. It must be seen to be relevant in real terms. Both the higher education institutions and the responsible ministry must therefore seriously prioritize the "third task", i.e. collaboration.

Primary schools are still using 20th century methods that no longer work. A first step towards greater relevance must be to make digital methods and approaches a natural part of school education, just like in all other parts of working life. Here, the minister responsible has shown an astonishing lack of interest, resulting in a very patchy spread of digital tools and methods and a significant lack of equivalence.

Another method that time has outrun is the internship, which, at least for the growing knowledge-intensive sectors, does not work at all. At the current pace and skill requirements, it is preposterous to think that a teenager with no qualifications can be meaningfully put 'into production' in an isolated week. It leads to only one thing for all parties: guilt-ridden frustration.

This does not mean that school leavers have no role to play in the modern world of work. On the contrary, they can bring valuable new thinking and perspectives. However, this must be done in a way that allows students, school staff and the world of work to participate on their own terms.

Here we highlight some winning components from our current competition, Next Up (which also features in other collaborative initiatives such as Problem Solvers and Future City):

• The cases are made an integral part of the teaching, thus creating relevant applications of the curriculum.
• The competition format, in which students present their solutions to qualified juries, triggers young people.
• Students from the university (in Next Up's case exclusively female students) participate as team leaders/competition coordinators and thus act as role models and links between school and working life.
• A short visit to a company during the competition period allows the encounter with working life to be put in a relevant context.

The teachers and headteachers recruited to the project can all attest to the benefits. However, they have been engaged through direct personal contacts, without any supporting structures in the school organization. Note that there is nothing wrong with curricula and other policy documents; on the contrary, there are important statements about skills, entrepreneurial learning and the use of modern tools. What is missing is the will, interest and ability to coordinate.

With the formation of the government in the fall, we therefore look forward to the appointment of a Minister for Skills, who will once and for all break the barriers between education and labor market policy and instead focus much more on collaboration for truly relevant learning! Top of the agenda for the new/new minister should therefore be:

• Create clear incentives for collaboration at all levels of the education system, using Next Up and similar initiatives for schools, and polytechnics for higher education, as models. See the world of work as an opportunity for application, not as a training dump!
• To ensure, once and for all, at all levels - classroom, school management, teacher training - that modern digital tools and methods are used and seen as an integral part of teaching. And that this is coordinated nationally, so that all students, throughout Sweden, have the same conditions to meet the professional life of the future.

Anne-Marie Fransson, Director of IT&Telecom
Lars Markgren, CEO King
Johan Rittner, CEO IBM Svenska
Sara Murby Forste, CEO Basefarm & Steering Group Chairman Next Up
Jacob de Geer, CEO iZettle
Micael Holmström, Head of Business Area IT Academic Work
Therese Sinter, Global Communications Director/Nordic Marketing Manager Sogeti
 

The article was published in its entirety on Ny Tekniks website 2014-04-02, opens in new window