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Education is no longer the sole responsibility of schools and universities. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic thrust parents into the role of co-educators in online classrooms, thought-leaders and companies were looking at how best to prepare young people for a tech-driven future, and careers that will be dramatically different to previous generations.
Forward-thinking companies are finding ways to partner with educational establishments and develop grassroots CSR programmes that will not only help students get jobs, but also teach kids about inclusivity, diversity, and how to be their best selves.
Arguably, today’s executives are best placed to understand the future of work, which is why many of them are creating programmes, that, for example, encourage girls to pursue STEM subjects, or ensure access to tech for underprivileged students.
Young people themselves are standing up and demanding curriculum reform to fit with their values and needs. They want to develop both the mental resilience and the hard skills to compete in the world and contribute to society.
A survey by Zurich Insurance in 2020 found more than 2.5 million 7 to 17-year-olds want climate change and sustainability topics to be covered at school.
A 2020 survey conducted by the National Union of Students discovered that 76% of student respondents consider climate change as serious a risk as COVID-19 and 68% of them wanted to see the issue of climate change take priority in the post-pandemic economic recovery.
https://sustainability.nus.org.uk/articles/students-want-a-green-recovery
A curriculum overhaul
In the second #ChamberBreakers podcast series, Verizon Business and Yahoo Finance UK interviewed a broad spectrum of business leaders, diversity and inclusion advocates, and child-development experts, to examine how education needs to evolve — and how corporate CSR has a golden opportunity to be part of that change.
Steve Frampton, MBA, former president of the Association of Colleges, and currently the chair of Association of Colleges Services Board and Furthering Higher Education Climate Commissioner, told #ChamberBreakers that today’s school curriculum needs a radical overhaul.
“The curriculum isn't appropriate, it isn't balanced, it isn't going to be what is necessary for young people going forward,” Frampton said. “I would argue that we do need a fairly radical review of education in the round — the curriculum, its delivery, and its assessment.”
Frampton said that we need to “embed that idea that learning is going to be lifelong,” because most people entering the workforce today can expect to have five to seven jobs and two to three careers over their working life.
Frampton points to the 2019 conference of experts organised by UK-based tech-focused non-profit Jisc, which supports higher education and research institutions. In its report on the future of assessment in universities and colleges, Jisc said there is a “fundamental and growing disconnect between the way we assess education, the value that assessment currently provides to students and the value they need and expect from it.”
https://repository.jisc.ac.uk/7733/1/the-future-of-assessment-report.pdf
Jisc concluded that in the UK overall, “the assessment of learning is still rooted in the practices of the 20th century and earlier. Students learn, communicate and collaborate in a digital environment; go on to work in a digital environment and yet online assessment is some way behind the curve.”
Jisc noted that lifelong learning necessitates assessment that “should be as flexible as possible, rather than involving an approach that evaluates and tests knowledge through a limited number of high-stake, high-stress assessment points.”
Frampton, who is based in the UK, is optimistic that radical curriculum change is achievable but calls on the entire educational ecosystem — from Ofsted, to higher education leaders, and the Department of Education— to commit to significant investment in the sector to make that happen.
CSR and levelling the tech divide
Ann Cairns, the executive vice chair of Mastercard, told the #ChamberBreakers podcast that businesses have a vital role to play in the process of raising and educating tomorrow’s leaders.
Cairns said that ensuring fair access to technology for all is not just the responsibility of charities but needs to be addressed by government and businesses.
For example, Mastercard launched a programme, called Girls4Tech, five years ago, to encourage and support young girls to acquire STEM skills. So far, she said, it has reached over one million girls in 31 countries.
“We bring girls, from age 10… and say, ‘It's really cool to work in the tech industry you don't have to be a geek,’” says Cairns. “But it's good to have some technical training in order to be getting into these [tech] industries. And we tell them what encryption is, what you do when you're coding, and all sorts of things.”
“When it comes to designing the future, women's thoughts and women's voices need to be there,” Cairns said. “In terms of women in STEM, absolutely it's never too late — one of the great things that I think we've seen during COVID is that we can work remotely, we can learn remotely, we can learn to use new technology remotely.”
As well as formal training, Cairns sees mentoring as a key part of a holistic CSR strategy. And that mentoring can work both ways, particularly when it comes to tech, with younger tech-savvy staff helping more senior people in the company learn and keep up with new developments.
This “reverse mentoring” concept also is very effective for company leaders when it comes to diversity and inclusion training, the Mastercard vice-chair notes, and urges company leaders to be brave and ask staff to reverse-mentor them.
CSR and extended responsibility
Business can make a difference across many aspects of education, from teaching methods, to new skills, to creating equal opportunities if they embrace the concept of “extended responsibility.”
David Benattar, chief sustainability officer for The Warehouse Group, New Zealand's largest retail group, told the #Chamberbreakers podcast that the concept of extended responsibility means that as a business “our responsibility doesn't stop at the time when we sell a product, at the time when we hire or part ways with an employee—it is the before and after of this relationship.”
The Warehouse Group views numeracy literacy, communication, relationship building as essential skills that young people need to come prepared for when they want to work in the workforce today.
These CSR initiatives cannot be implemented in a vacuum however, they require collaboration with government and industry — even if it is not always easy.
“I think, we are struggling with that tension and that dynamic between government reshaping education sector and industry addressing immediate needs,” Benattar said.
To address New Zealand’s shortage of ICT and STEM skills in the workplace, Warehouse Group teamed up with IBM, the Manukau Institute of Technology and schools, universities and companies to launch a STEM education and digital education programme called P-TECH, to prepare young New Zealanders for technology related careers.
“We enabled young students to earn relevant tertiary qualifications… they develop academic, technical and professional skills… that prepare them to compete in the workforce of today,” he explained.
The Warehouse Group, in cooperation with the Ministry for Social Development, also runs a programme called Red Shirts to help unemployed young people from minority backgrounds gain retail skills and work experience.
“I think it's critical for business to engage in this sort of platform, to dedicate resources and team members to participate in what the future can create,” Benattar said. “At the end of the day, the benefit is not only for these young people, it's for us as an organization, because these young people are the customers of today and tomorrow. They are our employees of today and tomorrow.”
Raising tomorrow’s leaders
Children and young people today will face non-stop disruption in the workplace, a world recovering a deadly pandemic, and the challenge of tackling climate change. It is therefore it equally as important to train them to be resilient, creative, cooperative and solution-focused.
Award-winning author Esther Wojcicki is one of the best-qualified educators in the world to speak to the subject. She has been dubbed the ‘godmother of Silicon Valley’ due to the huge numbers of her students who went on to become successful entrepreneurs.
Her book ‘How to Raise Successful People’ is based on the fundamentals of using trust, respect, independence, collaboration, and kindness with children.
“It's really important for you as parents to develop trust and respect for your children when they are young,” Wojcicki told the #Chamberbreakers podcast.
“Through this method of mine, where you give them this opportunity to believe in themselves and do more and more things independently, they develop self-respect and self-love. And that is one of the most important things a person can have when they're an adult.”
She believes that the COVID-19 pandemic disruption forced education to change, and this offers us a unique opportunity to re-imagine the education system.
“Prior to the pandemic, people were moving in this direction… of giving kids more control, but now they don't have a choice,” she said.
As a leading light in Silicon Valley, Wojcicki is a strong advocate for tech companies turning their brains to the education sector. Her first book, ‘Moonshots in Education,’ is about blended learning, i.e. how to combine traditional teaching methods with technology.
Wojcicki’s Moonshots movement now comprises teachers, students, parents, and community leaders collaborating to open new frontiers in education. https://www.moonshots.org
“It took a tremendous amount of community effort to get to the moon, and that’s what is required in every moonshot—you need to work together, you need to be collaborative,” Wojcicki said.
Education that fosters diversity and inclusion
One essential aspect of guiding children to be kind, respectful human beings — and a gaping hole in the current education curriculum — is teaching on the topic of gender and discrimination.
LGBT+ people face immense challenges in schools, workplaces, and other parts of their everyday life. A 2020 report by Galop, the UK’s leading LGBT+ anti-violence charity, found they suffer from alarming levels of online abuse.
The report revealed that eight out of 10 LGBT+ people had experienced online abuse, six out of 10 had been threatened with physical violence, and four in 10 received death threats or threats of sexual violence.
http://www.galop.org.uk/online-hate-crime-report-2020/
Trans activist Charlie Craggs told the #ChamberBreakers podcast that teaching the complexity of gender and identity in schools is absolutely essential if we are to stop bullying and bigotry going from the playground to the workplace.
Craggs is the founder of Nail Transphobia, a pop-up nail salon that travels around the UK offering free manicures as a way to open hearts and minds.
“Most people just haven't met a trans person before and this is where these misconceptions come from,” Craggs said. “If they were to be exposed to different types of people, there would be less bullying amongst young people, but also amongst older people — if you still haven't met a trans person, you could still be transphobic in the workplace, or in social spaces.”
Craggs is a big advocate for gender education in schools, because not discussing the topic creates dangerous taboos that generate shame and hurt.
“If kids were taught from an early age that some boys like boys, then it's normal…But it's that they're taught the homophobia, or the transphobia, or the racism —kids aren't born that way, they're taught it,“ Craggs said, adding that everyone is being failed by the education system in this respect.
“That's where it starts. And that's why we have it in the workplace as well. They've left the playground being homophobic, or racist, or whatever, and they've gone into the workplace being like that,” she said.
A common goal
Steve Frampton believes that people in the education sector have a lot to learn from companies and vice versa.
He advocates “breaking down artificial barriers and having really meaningful conversations…let's have a look at that common agenda that we all share, and how collaboratively could we work on that for the benefit of employers, colleges, and also all the students.”
Benattar’s message to the global business community is to “really to double down” on their CSR investments.
“The best kept secret — that CSR directly benefits the bottom line — is not a secret anymore, he said. “It's being recognised by the business community as being one of the key drivers for business performance.”