How can schools stand the test of time?

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Warner Dijkhuizen, CC&CA manager IBM Benelux

IBM’s Corporate Social Responsibility programs have a focus on the full range of education, from kindergarten through primary and secondary school up to vocational education and universities, even transition to IT careers and basic IT training for seniors are in scope. Education is important because it is essential to improve the quality of the society. In the short term, schools keep the kids off the streets and in the school, and more importantly: provides them with educational qualifications which will eventually lead to jobs which in turn help to keep the economy engine running. At least when the acquired skills connect to today’s job requirements and this appears to be an increasing challenge. It is not that education models haven’t changed over the last years, quite the contrary. There are numerous new and important topics squeezed into the school day because we like our children to have mastered many skills for when they complete their full time education: road safety lessons, healthy eating and internet safety in the early years and soft skills like team working and presentation skills later on, and this all in a limited number of hours per week and channeled through the poor teacher in front of a class of 30 students.

It is not the lack of willingness to adapt within today’s education system but it may very well be the explosion of new technologies and the acceleration in change that is impeding the education-career step for many students in the future. The world is getting more instrumented, interconnected and intelligent and I cannot think of a career which is not influenced by the opportunities the new technology offers. The pace and the range of the digital revolution causes a skills gap between a graduate and any companies new hire. But also for many people who have already found a career path, a digital skills backlog is lurking around every corner, therefore we need to re-think how we acquire and maintain the skills for tomorrows jobs.

Exactly for that question: “How can we prepare the kids who have their first day in school this September and will enter the labor market around 2032?” The Dutch Ministry of Education created a task force “OurEducation2032”. Stakeholders from corporations, education and government provided their input.
Some key findings are:

• Education and business cannot survive without each other. Companies are dependent on the knowledge and skills of their employees,  in addition, the schools and universities which train the students need companies to fuel them with the latest insights. The best students from the best schools go to the best companies, and the way to climb that ladder is collaboration.

• Less hours in the curriculum and more time for experiments. A strict set curriculum does not encourages the innovation in education. The school and teacher  must be challenged to experiment and innovate as owner of the learning process.
• Life long learning is a mentality. Each individual will be responsible to gather and maintain his or her own skills and graduation day is not the end of learning, just the first important milestone. And it is a part of the role of schools as well as employers to remind people of this.
• The Netherlands must invest in public-private partnerships. The Netherlands has a gold mine when it comes to the development of public-private partnerships in education. Business and education are bridging the skills gap by working and learning together. We must continue to invest in them.

We see a number of successful and long-standing partnerships like Jet-Net and new initiatives to exchange knowledge, information and ideas nearly everyday. Some will grow, some will fade out,  but the general view is that when education and business join hands both benefit and most importantly, deliver students fit for tomorrow’s jobs.

I would encourage you to check the links mentioned below, or reach out to me on warner_dijkhuizen@nl.ibm.com.

IBM Pathways in Technology Early College High School
Summary Dutch Technology Pact. (Ministry of Education)
Jet-Net public-private partnerschip