SECOND ORIGINAL BLOG POST

TOP CLASS Podcast from OECD’s EduSkills - https://open.spotify.com/episode/1yEsJJa3iOAtOUCfVaNddr

What skills are needed for the AI and green jobs era? 

 Seeing as I have now included the the EduSkills section of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) platform to my Personal Learning Network, I was tempted to listen to and reflect upon a podcast from their Top Class series titled What skills are needed for the AI and green jobs era?

 Following reflection, my first observation or should I say realization has to do with the fact that economists are commenting on the world of education. My first such encounter was with Andrea Gavosto’s book La scuola bloccata (The Blocked School) and I guess I thought that was just a fluke that an economist should want to devote the time and energy of the foundation that he leads to the research and study of education. Gavosto is lapidary in his commenting the Italian school system; Italian students’ PISA scores and the Italian government’s disengagement from schools and education. So, it came as a surprise to discover that this episode of the OECD’s Top Class podcast should also have two economists as guests: Karin Kimbrough, chief economist at LinkedIn and Stefano Scarpetta, senior economist at the OECD between 1991 and 2002 and today’s OECD Director for Employment, Labor, and Social Affairs. After having listened to Kimbrough and Scarpetta’s comments and recommendations on what skills are needed for the AI and green jobs era, I realized that economists are indeed very well-placed to express such opinions, because ultimately education through its programs and approaches can either support or hinder a society’s well-being and economy. Essentially, the prosperity and economy of a society or a nation are impacted by many if not most of the decisions made in the realm of education. Gavosto, for instance, would opt for a complete overhaul of the Italian education system and I have to agree. Just as an example: university students that I know personally have described their plight through higher education. Essentially, there is no room for practice and collaboration, just theory, and there are hardly, if any, projects involving reflection, discussion, and writing. Universities base their grades on exams either written or oral and students who do not make the grades, can retake the exam over… and over again. Surely, students would be better prepared for life and today’s labor market if, during their academic journey, they had the opportunity to engage in discussions, problem-solving and exchanges fittingly underpinned by creative and critical thinking.

But let me now delve into the content emerging from the OECD’s above-mentioned podcast. What we learn is that an OECD study published in December 2024 surveying adults from 16 to 65 years of age, in 31 of the 38 member countries, reveals that there has not been an improvement in foundation skills like literacy, numeracy and adaptive problem-solving since the previous survey. This state of affairs has Scarpetta stating: “So, on the one hand we seem to be stagnating in terms of equipping individuals for the workforce with the right skills – even foundation skills – and on the other hand there is a growing demand in most sectors to find workers who are work-ready.” Additionally, we must mention that there exists a labor mismatch between what skills are needed by employers and what the workers possess. LinkedIn’s Karin Kimbrough goes on to explain that the labor market today is changing more rapidly than ever before and has people struggling to keep up and upskill for jobs that may or may not even exist yet in 5 years time! With Generative AI and green jobs that have yet to be imagined, the future looks unpredictable – a situation that gives rise to anxiety in society.

Now, the question that immediately comes to mind is who, in the system, is failing? Is it the school system that is unable to supply properly trained individuals? Is it the job market and the respective employers who were not perceptive enough to foresee what was coming down the road? Or is it the school system that has been incapable of capturing the signals made by the job market? Whoever the culprit may be does not seem to matter, at this point, because the only appropriate and wise thing to do would be to move forward and find solutions that could/should be rapidly implemented across the board in all sectors. But what could possibly help this situation, where could we possibly start to find the answers? For a little suspense, we’ll come back to this point later on in this post. 

When asked by the moderator what skills individuals should be developing to be prepared to tackle head on the changing job market, Scarpetta explains that a certain level of digital and AI skills is clearly necessary, but that foundation skills and socioemotional or human skills, like the ability to process information or to solve a complex problem or to think critically, are equally essential. He emphasizes the importance of nurturing soft skills for life and for the job market. He then goes on to say that our traditional way of learning and building skills where first we study, then we work, and then finally reach retirement is today an antiquated process that must change in the years to come. Finally, he states “We really must move to a process in which we continuously learn. We must learn how to learn, which is the most important element of the transformation that we need.” In light of what I am seeing and hearing about in society and in the news, clearly, I could not agree with him more. Life-long education and professional development is fundamental to creating and maintaining well-being in our current-day society and, yes, learning to learn would be an asset for most people today, some of whom lack even foundation skills. It would certainly be one step in the right direction. In fact, when asked by the moderator which essential competency or skill would most help people succeed in the workforce 10 years from now, Scarpetta immediately replies foundation skills, as without this substructure the acquisition of other skills and knowledge would be jeopardized.

Another very interesting topic that both Kimbrough and Scarpetta touch upon is the absence of information on what skills people must learn to satisfy the innumerable demands made by the labor market. Kimbrough goes as far as saying that there is a "lack of efficient process to connect employers with the skill providers,” namely instructors or teachers. This has not fallen on deaf ears, as the PR and communications practitioner in me totally understands where this problem stems from: there is a lack of communication between the different sectors ranging from the employers, to the schools and right up to the students and future employees. Information is not circulating which means that students not only feel lost and paralyzed before this landscape where there are thousands of jobs for which they are not well-suited, but they also haven’t any idea of how they should upskill for the job. (Karin Kimbrough mentions holding up to 14-15 million jobs on the LinkedIn platform!) In passing, the lack of appropriate communication is also “the culprit” that I was referring to earlier. In part, the labor market may be agonizing because of inadequate communication and collaboration between the numerous actors and sectors at play.

 Another element that I found particularly interesting is introduced by Karin Kimbrough when she mentions that to better sustain employees in their aim to pursue their learning, educational institutions today should become more agile and implement “multiple pathways for learning,” and not just focus on the more traditional methods of teaching and learning. Today, we can count on online classes, but what else can be done to favor workers who need to upskill? She mentions for instance offering professional nano development courses of 4 to 5 hours or any number of brief courses that would allow people to “start to build [their] way, like LEGOs, towards something that feels like a bridge to a new career path.” Scarpetta acquiesces and explains that surveys demonstrate that one of the major barriers to the participation of workers in life-long learning is time and the lack of it. He also states that AI could advantageously be used to synthesize generic training courses into shorter, more targeted versions. Quite frankly, this is fertile terrain for innovation in teaching and learning, but the tricky thing will be planning and imagining the way forward when contexts and circumstances are so volatile in this ever-changing marketplace, economy, and society. And this is where and why a tradition of continuous monitoring and communication should be built and nurtured between educational institutions, employers, and workers of all categories. And to sort of extrapolate on one of Kimbrough’s comments I would say that some kind of a national database connecting employers to education providers and to skilled workers should be envisaged. But the key here, as I see it, remains the harmonization of the different sectors through communication. In fact, the podcast ends with an admission: Kimbrough states that the skill that is most in demand by employers is… communication. And I can only agree, as in my experience, an infinite number of solutions can be found thanks to the effective use of dialogue and communication. And, yes, even effective communications is very often difficult to achieve; this too requires some training.

The one point in this podcast that left me somewhat doubtful is when it was mentioned that human or soft skills can be can be acquired through “even a short training course in which you can learn something and at the same time you can also be credited for the soft skills.” I beg to differ: I do not see how a good number of soft or human skills, like adaptability, or spirit or learning agility can be transmitted in a brief training course. I personally feel that the vast majority of human skills can only be acquired through time, life and experience.

REFERENCE

What skills are needed for the AI and Green Jobs Era? Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development https://open.spotify.com/episode/1yEsJJa3iOAtOUCfVaNddr. (2024, December 18).