Monday, April 04, 2016

Changing nature of work

As a follow up from the last post, I have summarised some of the NZ links / articles coming out of the Labour Party conference on the Future of Work. A range of options and discussion papers is on the site along with one focused on impacts to education with a case study from Denmark included. The NZ media have latched on to one option - that of a Universal Basic Income for all NZers. There is a supportive article in the Huffington Post providing international background to the UBI. A counter is recorded in the local media from Labour Leader on UBI shows tentative exploration at this stage, so not something to become too excited about yet.

There are some 'repeats' of various policies / discussions from the now disbanded Department of Labour report to the Goverment - 2008 report.

Suffice to say, the above is response to the growing number of opinions reporting the risks to current jobs through computerisation and technology. NZ context reflected in this article starting 46% of present NZ jobs threatened by 'robots'.

As educators, there is an need to find the balance between providing learners with 'generic skills' - some yet to be identified / defined, and the need to provide vocational education to prepare learners for a range of increasingly context-specific and specialised / skilled occupations. We really need to do some work towards 'signature pedagogies' which also prepare learners to be 'flexible'.


No comments: