The Future of Learning: Preparing for Change.

Some time ago I was involved in a foresight study entitled “The Future of Learning: new ways to learn new skills for future jobs”. The study, launched by the European Commission, aimed at developing visions and scenarios on new ways to acquire skills and competences in Europe in 2020-2030. The following dimensions were mainly addressed:

1. Emergent skills and competences associated with future jobs
2. New ways and practices of acquiring knowledge, skills and competences
3. Associated changes in the roles of the participants in the learning process, i.e. learners and teachers
4. Implications for existing Education and Training institutions, systems and policy frameworks
5. The role of information and communication technologies in transforming and supporting creative and innovative learning
6. Changes and challenges to assessment, certification and accreditation
7. Implications of the envisaged changes for present policy action and support

The study was conducted by a group of researchers from the European Commission Institute for Prospective Technology Studies (IPTS) in Seville, the TNO (the applied research and technology organisation of the Netherlands), the Open University of the Netherlands and AtticMedia (a specialist learning communications agency from London), and a set of domain experts were involved from different disciplines and organizations, which were asked their contribution to the vision building process based on the “group concept mapping” (GCM) method.

The study, recently published by the IPTS, is worth reading and now available for download.

The report aims to identify, understand and visualise major changes to learning in the future. It developed a descriptive vision of the future, based on existing trends and drivers, and a normative vision outlining how future learning opportunities should be developed to contribute to social cohesion, socio-economic inclusion and economic growth.

The overall vision is that personalisation, collaboration and informalisation (informal learning) are at the core of learning in the future. These terms are not new in education and training but will have to become the central guiding principle for organising learning and teaching in the future. The central learning paradigm is thereby characterised by lifelong and life-wide learning, shaped by the ubiquity of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). At the same time, due to fast advances in technology and structural changes to European labour markets that are related to demographic change, globalisation and immigration, generic and transversal skills become more important, which support citizens in becoming lifelong learners who flexibly respond to change, are able to pro-actively develop their competences and thrive in collaborative learning and working environments.

Many of the changes depicted have been foreseen for some time but they now come together in such a way that is becomes urgent and pressing for policymakers to consider them and to propose and implement a fundamental shift in the learning paradigm for the 21st century digital world and economy. To reach the goals of personalised, collaborative and informalised learning, holistic changes need to be made (curricula, pedagogies, assessment, leadership, teacher training, etc.) and mechanisms need to be put in place which make flexible and targeted lifelong learning a reality and support the recognition of informally acquired skills.

You will especially appreciate the way the EU challenges for future learning policies have been described through a set of “user personas”, and in particular:

• Chanta, the 6 year old child of Cambodian immigrants who came to Poitiers (France) in 2023
• Bruno, who lives in Milan (Italy) and is in the 9th grade of a public school
• Emma, a 17-year-old girl who lives in Munich (Germany) and is in her last year of high school
• Joshua, a young man form suburban England who finished his three-year vocational training programme for hotel industry and who is now strugging to find a job
• Sven, a 42-year-old father who lives in the Swedish town of Katrineholm and lost his job when the car factory he worked for closed in 2014
• Martina, now 59, highly qualified and specialized programmer from Prague (Czech Republic) whose skills became obsolete because of the rapid rise of quantum computing and neural self-correcting networks

All these personas have something in common: there seems to be no place for them in their surrounding labour market.

How can they improve their skills and get ready for new professional challenges?
A quick and effective answer can be found in a set of videos produced as part of the study and now available on YouTube.

And you? What do you think will be the challenges of learning in 2020 and beyond?