The future of jobs

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Education is encrusted in all sorts of myths. One such established myth is that we are educating for the future. There’s a factoid currently in circulation which claims, for the generation now in school, something like 50% of their future jobs have not yet been invented. I’m sorry to say that this has again made headlines. Indeed, it was referenced at the World Economic Forum, the gathering of elite business leaders in Davos.

There’s a very bright Canadian blogger who did a little digging and discovered that this particular factoid has been in circulation since the late 1950s; usually spread by leadership groups interested in conveying a future of rapid change while espousing their leadership capabilities.

The tools to cope with change

This factoid, however, does reflect the correct common-sense view that the world is changing rapidly. Sure enough, we need education to provide us with the tools to cope with this rapid change; but this factoid explicitly focuses on jobs, which narrows the scope and the purpose of education. Leadership groups focus on the economy because this type of message encourages people to follow them. It also suggests a future of collective gains. These leadership groups see themselves as the custodians of the economy, so they believe it’s their responsibility to focus education on it.

An unpredictable labour market

Of course, the labour market does change, but it doesn’t change as dramatically as that factoid suggests and it certainly doesn’t always change in the direction people suggest.

For example, when the World Economic Forum issued this factoid, it paradoxically claimed that, despite not having been invented, future jobs will all be in IT and advanced manufacturing. They picked out a few likely sectors in which they’re well represented. These sectors actually employ a very small number of people today, and there’s no sign they’ll be employing more people tomorrow. Instead, the fastest growing occupational groups today are health and social care. This fact is rarely mentioned in discussions about the jobs of the future.

Naturally, this has made me very suspicious, and I think many commentators who understand the subject would feel the same. Together, we are wary of these pronouncements about future jobs and their implications for education.

Preparing students for tomorrow

At one level, we can’t plan for the future. We simply don’t know what our children’s lives are going to be like in 30 years. We certainly have little understanding of what jobs they’ll be doing. We have some hunches, but they don’t accord with the World Economic Forum. We can’t anticipate what new challenges may occur. As such, education can’t prepare children for the future except by making them happy, fulfilled, confident, flexible and trainable.

Teaching qualities of character

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Most importantly, education should make children confident in their abilities. They can learn this by working hard at something they are good at and already like. Children can then rely on this experience when they are faced with unknown challenges in the future. They should know they’ve overcome such obstacles before and can likely do it again.

That said, I do admit that education has to train for the future because it inherently prepares young people for the rest of their lives. However, it cannot accomplish this with any great precision. Perhaps it can come close by cultivating qualities of mind and qualities of character rather than specific skills.

The goals of education

When considering the education system of the future, I think we recognise that there is a wide range of goals to be served. By deprecating the idea that education should train a future workforce, I don’t mean to suggest that education should ignore the needs of the future workforce.

I believe that we serve students by providing them with a general skill set and a high level of cognitive development in a wide portfolio of subjects. After all, these are valuable assets to have at any time, including the future.

I also believe that education has to function for civic and political purposes. That said, I’m sceptical of politicians’ attempts to engineer education to suit their political inclinations over the healthy functioning of society. Indeed, that’s a common concern in all democracies.

National history and civic duties

Politicians are charged with funding and directing our education system. We do need to serve these civic and political functions. For example, most countries teach their national history, not to the exclusion of all others, but predominantly over other histories. Although I am a historian and I believe we ought to teach a properly globalised history, I’m firmly in favour of teaching national history with particular intensity. After all, you have the resources at hand, and individuals must grow up to be citizens. In the United Kingdom, for example, students must learn enough about the functioning of their government to fulfil those civic functions. Certain traditional curricular demands will not go away no matter how the political winds blow.

A focus on disciplines

I also believe studying a discipline is crucial. This is true irrespective of the discipline.

I am a historian. My daughter did a linguistics degree, while my son studied geochemistry. I was delighted with the results of each because they were learning subjects they loved. Moreover, they were doing them at a very high level. As part of this education, they also received general training that will serve them throughout their lives.

Nevertheless, that training wouldn’t have been as good if they weren’t trained in disciplines. Linguistics, chemistry and history are very traditional disciplines. They have a long history behind them which helps demarcate what’s essential to know and which tools to apply. These disciplines are always growing and developing despite the fact they are very traditional and, perhaps even, backwards-looking.

No need for dogma

It is important to note the dangers of elevating one discipline over all others, which does occasionally happen, say, with computer science or maths. Yet, when there has been a ludicrous overemphasis of one discipline, children have still benefited. That said, when students are allowed to choose their discipline, they benefit regardless of their choice.

Overall, I think there are many traditional characteristics of education that one wants to preserve. Although some may consider this a permissive view, basic subjects should be taught alongside a child’s chosen speciality. Children should be given more choice about what they learn, and we shouldn’t worry too much about whether that’s going to impair or improve their futures.

How should we teach history?

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As a historian, I believe we need to move away from our over-focus on our own national history. This type of pedagogy was canonical for the 19th and most of the 20th century. This was the case, as democratic systems were being developed. Elites realised the need to train citizens to behave responsibly and to acknowledge their traditional leaders. So, lay people needed to learn about their national history.

Teaching national history was an obvious priority for democratic States for a long time. Yet, I believe it is crucial that we also develop an understanding of how other people across the world view themselves. As such, we should also consider the national histories of other countries. We may realise then that the experience of other cultures was quite different in the past, although they may appear to be converging in recent years.

Finally, I’m also convinced we should teach a genuinely global history. As opposed to the European-centric history in curricula, this global history should describe Africa before European colonisation. It should also include the history of Asia and Latin America.

A better education

It’s hard for me to extrapolate to other disciplines; however, I know from my own children’s experience that other fields are also increasingly concerned about including multiple perspectives. There is a trend across disciplines to incorporate multiple experiences that consider the world as a single system. This approach is naturally more complicated, but it takes into account different aspects that have previously been understood individually.

Although I’m loath to predict the future, it’s tough to imagine that these world perspectives won’t dominate the later 21st century. These perspectives will not cast us as all alike, rather they will make us aware of how we are and are not different.

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Improving education for the future

Mandler, P. (2020). The Crisis of the Meritocracy: Britain's Transition to Mass Education since the Second World War. Oxford University Press.

Collini, S. (2012). What are Universities For? Penguin Books.

Doxtdator, B. (2017, July 8) A Field Guide to 'Jobs That Don't Exist Yet' [Blog Post]. Long View on Education.

Dismantling the myth of educating for future jobs