El principal problema al que tienen que hacer frente ante los avances tecnológicos, es el reciclaje de todas las personas que se pueden quedar sin empleo. Lo que requeriría un gasto en formación por parte del gobierno, para que no se vean imposibilitados de encontrar un empleo. A.Beltran
Learning and earning
Equipping people to stay ahead of technological change
It is easy to say that people need to keep learning throughout their careers. The practicalities are daunting
Jan 14th 2017
WHEN education fails to keep pace with technology, the result is inequality. Without the skills to stay useful as innovations arrive, workers suffer—and if enough of them fall behind, society starts to fall apart. That fundamental insight seized reformers in the Industrial Revolution, heralding state-funded universal schooling. Later, automation in factories and offices called forth a surge in college graduates. The combination of education and innovation, spread over decades, led to a remarkable flowering of prosperity.
Today robotics and artificial intelligence call for another education revolution. This time, however, working lives are so lengthy and so fast-changing that simply cramming more schooling in at the start is not enough. People must also be able to acquire new skills throughout their careers.
Unfortunately, as our special report in this issue sets out, the lifelong learning that exists today mainly benefits high achievers—and is therefore more likely to exacerbate inequality than diminish it. If 21st-century economies are not to create a massive underclass, policymakers urgently need to work out how to help all their citizens learn while they earn. So far, their ambition has fallen pitifully short.
Machines or learning
The classic model of education—a burst at the start and top-ups through company training—is breaking down. One reason is the need for new, and constantly updated, skills. Manufacturing increasingly calls for brain work rather than metal-bashing (see Briefing). The share of the American workforce employed in routine office jobs declined from 25.5% to 21% between 1996 and 2015. The single, stable career has gone the way of the Rolodex.
Pushing people into ever-higher levels of formal education at the start of their lives is not the way to cope. Just 16% of Americans think that a four-year college degree prepares students very well for a good job. Although a vocational education promises that vital first hire, those with specialised training tend to withdraw from the labour force earlier than those with general education—perhaps because they are less adaptable.
At the same time on-the-job training is shrinking. In America and Britain it has fallen by roughly half in the past two decades. Self-employment is spreading, leaving more people to take responsibility for their own skills. Taking time out later in life to pursue a formal qualification is an option, but it costs money and most colleges are geared towards youngsters.
The market is innovating to enable workers to learn and earn in new ways. Providers from General Assembly to Pluralsight are building businesses on the promise of boosting and rebooting careers. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have veered away from lectures on Plato or black holes in favour of courses that make their students more employable. At Udacity and Coursera self-improvers pay for cheap, short programmes that bestow “microcredentials” and “nanodegrees” in, say, self-driving cars or the Android operating system. By offering degrees online, universities are making it easier for professionals to burnish their skills. A single master’s programme from Georgia Tech could expand the annual output of computer-science master’s degrees in America by close to 10%.
Such efforts demonstrate how to interleave careers and learning. But left to its own devices, this nascent market will mainly serve those who already have advantages. It is easier to learn later in life if you enjoyed the classroom first time around: about 80% of the learners on Coursera already have degrees. Online learning requires some IT literacy, yet one in four adults in the OECD has no or limited experience of computers. Skills atrophy unless they are used, but many low-end jobs give workers little chance to practise them.
Shampoo technician wanted
If new ways of learning are to help those who need them most, policymakers should be aiming for something far more radical. Because education is a public good whose benefits spill over to all of society, governments have a vital role to play—not just by spending more, but also by spending wisely.
Lifelong learning starts at school. As a rule, education should not be narrowly vocational. The curriculum needs to teach children how to study and think. A focus on “metacognition” will make them better at picking up skills later in life.
But the biggest change is to make adult learning routinely accessible to all. One way is for citizens to receive vouchers that they can use to pay for training. Singapore has such “individual learning accounts”; it has given money to everyone over 25 to spend on courses from 500 approved providers. So far each citizen has only a few hundred dollars, but it is early days.
Courses paid for by taxpayers risk being wasteful. But industry can help by steering people towards the skills it wants and by working with MOOCs and colleges to design courses that are relevant. Companies can also encourage their staff to learn. AT&T, a telecoms firm which wants to equip its workforce with digital skills, spends $30m a year on reimbursing employees’ tuition costs. Trade unions can play a useful role as organisers of lifelong learning, particularly for those—workers in small firms or the self-employed—for whom company-provided training is unlikely. A union-run training programme in Britain has support from political parties on the right and left.
To make all this training worthwhile, governments need to slash the licensing requirements and other barriers that make it hard for newcomers to enter occupations. Rather than asking for 300 hours’ practice to qualify to wash hair, for instance, the state of Tennessee should let hairdressers decide for themselves who is the best person to hire.
Not everyone will successfully navigate the shifting jobs market. Those most at risk of technological disruption are men in blue-collar jobs, many of whom reject taking less “masculine” roles in fast-growing areas such as health care. But to keep the numbers of those left behind to a minimum, all adults must have access to flexible, affordable training. The 19th and 20th centuries saw stunning advances in education. That should be the scale of the ambition today.
Correction (January 13th): An earlier version of this piece stated that the number of courses available to Singaporeans numbered 500. In fact this figure refers to the number of approved providers offering courses.
This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “Lifelong learning”
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21714341-it-easy-say-people-need-keep-learning-throughout-their-careers-practicalities
Learning and earning
Equipping people to stay ahead of technological change
It is easy to say that people need to keep learning throughout their careers. The practicalities are daunting
Jan 14th 2017
WHEN education fails to keep pace with technology, the result is inequality. Without the skills to stay useful as innovations arrive, workers suffer—and if enough of them fall behind, society starts to fall apart. That fundamental insight seized reformers in the Industrial Revolution, heralding state-funded universal schooling. Later, automation in factories and offices called forth a surge in college graduates. The combination of education and innovation, spread over decades, led to a remarkable flowering of prosperity.
Today robotics and artificial intelligence call for another education revolution. This time, however, working lives are so lengthy and so fast-changing that simply cramming more schooling in at the start is not enough. People must also be able to acquire new skills throughout their careers.
Unfortunately, as our special report in this issue sets out, the lifelong learning that exists today mainly benefits high achievers—and is therefore more likely to exacerbate inequality than diminish it. If 21st-century economies are not to create a massive underclass, policymakers urgently need to work out how to help all their citizens learn while they earn. So far, their ambition has fallen pitifully short.
Machines or learning
The classic model of education—a burst at the start and top-ups through company training—is breaking down. One reason is the need for new, and constantly updated, skills. Manufacturing increasingly calls for brain work rather than metal-bashing (see Briefing). The share of the American workforce employed in routine office jobs declined from 25.5% to 21% between 1996 and 2015. The single, stable career has gone the way of the Rolodex.
Pushing people into ever-higher levels of formal education at the start of their lives is not the way to cope. Just 16% of Americans think that a four-year college degree prepares students very well for a good job. Although a vocational education promises that vital first hire, those with specialised training tend to withdraw from the labour force earlier than those with general education—perhaps because they are less adaptable.
At the same time on-the-job training is shrinking. In America and Britain it has fallen by roughly half in the past two decades. Self-employment is spreading, leaving more people to take responsibility for their own skills. Taking time out later in life to pursue a formal qualification is an option, but it costs money and most colleges are geared towards youngsters.
The market is innovating to enable workers to learn and earn in new ways. Providers from General Assembly to Pluralsight are building businesses on the promise of boosting and rebooting careers. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have veered away from lectures on Plato or black holes in favour of courses that make their students more employable. At Udacity and Coursera self-improvers pay for cheap, short programmes that bestow “microcredentials” and “nanodegrees” in, say, self-driving cars or the Android operating system. By offering degrees online, universities are making it easier for professionals to burnish their skills. A single master’s programme from Georgia Tech could expand the annual output of computer-science master’s degrees in America by close to 10%.
Such efforts demonstrate how to interleave careers and learning. But left to its own devices, this nascent market will mainly serve those who already have advantages. It is easier to learn later in life if you enjoyed the classroom first time around: about 80% of the learners on Coursera already have degrees. Online learning requires some IT literacy, yet one in four adults in the OECD has no or limited experience of computers. Skills atrophy unless they are used, but many low-end jobs give workers little chance to practise them.
Shampoo technician wanted
If new ways of learning are to help those who need them most, policymakers should be aiming for something far more radical. Because education is a public good whose benefits spill over to all of society, governments have a vital role to play—not just by spending more, but also by spending wisely.
Lifelong learning starts at school. As a rule, education should not be narrowly vocational. The curriculum needs to teach children how to study and think. A focus on “metacognition” will make them better at picking up skills later in life.
But the biggest change is to make adult learning routinely accessible to all. One way is for citizens to receive vouchers that they can use to pay for training. Singapore has such “individual learning accounts”; it has given money to everyone over 25 to spend on courses from 500 approved providers. So far each citizen has only a few hundred dollars, but it is early days.
Courses paid for by taxpayers risk being wasteful. But industry can help by steering people towards the skills it wants and by working with MOOCs and colleges to design courses that are relevant. Companies can also encourage their staff to learn. AT&T, a telecoms firm which wants to equip its workforce with digital skills, spends $30m a year on reimbursing employees’ tuition costs. Trade unions can play a useful role as organisers of lifelong learning, particularly for those—workers in small firms or the self-employed—for whom company-provided training is unlikely. A union-run training programme in Britain has support from political parties on the right and left.
To make all this training worthwhile, governments need to slash the licensing requirements and other barriers that make it hard for newcomers to enter occupations. Rather than asking for 300 hours’ practice to qualify to wash hair, for instance, the state of Tennessee should let hairdressers decide for themselves who is the best person to hire.
Not everyone will successfully navigate the shifting jobs market. Those most at risk of technological disruption are men in blue-collar jobs, many of whom reject taking less “masculine” roles in fast-growing areas such as health care. But to keep the numbers of those left behind to a minimum, all adults must have access to flexible, affordable training. The 19th and 20th centuries saw stunning advances in education. That should be the scale of the ambition today.
Correction (January 13th): An earlier version of this piece stated that the number of courses available to Singaporeans numbered 500. In fact this figure refers to the number of approved providers offering courses.
This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “Lifelong learning”
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21714341-it-easy-say-people-need-keep-learning-throughout-their-careers-practicalities
Cuando la educación no puede seguir el ritmo de la tecnología, el resultado es la desigualdad. Sin las habilidades para quedarse útil como llegan las innovaciones, los trabajadores sufren, y si lo suficiente de ellos caen detrás, la sociedad comienza a desmoronarse. Esa idea fundamental tomó reformadores en la Revolución Industrial, que anuncia la escolarización universal financiado por el estado. Más tarde, la automatización en fábricas y oficinas provocó un aumento en los graduados universitarios. La combinación de la educación y la innovación, se extendió durante décadas, dio lugar a un notable florecimiento de la prosperidad.
Hoy robótica y la inteligencia artificial llamada para otra revolución en la educación. Esta vez, sin embargo, la vida laboral son tan largos y tan rápidamente cambiante que amontonar más educación en al inicio no es suficiente. Las personas también deben ser capaces de adquirir nuevas capacidades a lo largo de sus carreras.
Por desgracia, como nuestro informe especial en este tema se propone, la formación continua que existe hoy en día sobre todo beneficia a alumnos de alto rendimiento-y por lo tanto es más probable que exacerbe la desigualdad de disminuirlo. Si las economías del siglo 21 no son para crear una subclase masiva, necesitan con urgencia políticas a encontrar la manera de ayudar a todos sus ciudadanos aprenden mientras que ganan. Hasta el momento, su ambición ha caído lamentablemente corta.
Máquinas o de aprendizaje
El modelo clásico de enseñanza-una explosión en la salida y recargas a través de la empresa de formación, se está rompiendo. Una de las razones es la necesidad de una nueva y actualizada constantemente, las habilidades. Fabricación exige cada vez más el trabajo del cerebro en lugar de metal-bashing (ver informativa ). La proporción de la fuerza laboral estadounidense empleados en trabajos de rutina se redujo de 25,5% a 21% entre 1996 y 2015. El single, carrera estable ha seguido el camino de la agenda.
Empujando a la gente a niveles cada vez más altos de educación formal en el inicio de su vida no es la manera de hacer frente. Sólo el 16% de los estadounidenses considera que un título universitario de cuatro años prepara a los estudiantes muy bien para un buen trabajo. A pesar de una formación profesional que promete primera alquiler de vital importancia, los que tienen una formación especializada tienden a retirarse de la fuerza de trabajo antes que aquellos con la educación en general, tal vez debido a que son menos adaptables.
Al mismo tiempo en el puesto de trabajo se está reduciendo. En Estados Unidos y el Reino Unido se ha reducido casi a la mitad en los últimos dos decenios. El autoempleo se está extendiendo, dejando a más personas a asumir la responsabilidad de sus propias habilidades. Tomar tiempo más tarde en la vida para perseguir un título de formación es una opción, pero cuesta dinero y la mayoría de las universidades están dirigidos a los jóvenes.
El mercado está innovando para que los trabajadores puedan aprender y ganar de nuevas maneras. Los proveedores de la Asamblea General, a Pluralsight están construyendo las empresas con la promesa de impulsar y reiniciar carreras. mooc (MOOCs) se desvió de conferencias sobre Platón o agujeros negros en favor de los cursos que hacen que sus estudiantes más empleables. En Udacity y Coursera auto-mejoradores de pagar por programas cortos baratas, que otorgan "microcredentials" y "nanodegrees" en, por ejemplo, los coches auto-conducción o el sistema operativo Android. Al ofrecer grados en línea, las universidades están haciendo más fácil para los profesionales para pulir sus habilidades. El programa de un solo maestro de Georgia Tech podría ampliar la producción anual de másters-ciencias de la computación en los Estados Unidos por cerca del 10%.
Estos esfuerzos demuestran cómo intercalar carreras y aprendizaje. Pero izquierda a sus propios dispositivos, este incipiente mercado prestará servicio principalmente a aquellos que ya tienen ventajas. Es más fácil de aprender en el futuro si disfrutado de la clase primera vez: alrededor del 80% de los estudiantes en Coursera ya tienen grados. El aprendizaje en línea requiere un poco de alfabetización informática, sin embargo, uno de cada cuatro adultos en la OCDE no tiene o tiene poca experiencia de los ordenadores. Habilidades atrofian si no se utilizan, pero muchos puestos de trabajo de gama baja dan a los trabajadores pocas posibilidades de practicarlos.
Champú técnico quería
Si las nuevas formas de aprendizaje son para ayudar a aquellos que más lo necesitan, las autoridades deben tener como meta algo mucho más radical. Dado que la educación es un bien público cuyos beneficios extenderse a toda la sociedad, los gobiernos tienen un papel vital que desempeñar, no sólo por el gasto de más, sino también por el gasto de forma inteligente.
El aprendizaje permanente se inicia en la escuela. Como regla general, la educación no debe ser estrictamente profesional. El plan de estudios tiene que enseñar a los niños a estudiar y pensar. Un enfoque en la "metacognición" les hará mejor en los oficios de la tarde en la vida.
Pero el cambio más importante es hacer que el aprendizaje de adultos rutinariamente accesible a todos. Una forma es que los ciudadanos reciben vales que se pueden utilizar para pagar el entrenamiento. Singapur tiene esas "cuentas individuales de aprendizaje"; se ha dado dinero a todos los mayores de 25 para gastar en los cursos de 500 proveedores aprobados. Hasta ahora cada ciudadano tiene sólo unos pocos cientos de dólares, pero todavía es pronto.
Cursos pagados por los contribuyentes el riesgo de ser un desperdicio. Pero la industria puede ayudar al dirigir a la gente hacia las habilidades que quiere y trabajando con MOOCs y universidades para diseñar cursos que son relevantes. Las empresas también pueden animar a su personal a aprender. AT & T, una empresa de telecomunicaciones, que quiere dotar a su fuerza de trabajo con habilidades digitales, gasta $ 30ma año el reembolso de los gastos de matrícula de los empleados. Los sindicatos pueden desempeñar un papel útil como organizadores de aprendizaje permanente, en particular para los trabajadores de las pequeñas empresas o los trabajadores autónomos, para los que es poco probable la formación proporcionada por la compañía. Un programa de formación sindical a ejecutar en Gran Bretaña tiene el apoyo de los partidos políticos de la derecha y la izquierda.
Para hacer todo esto valga la pena el entrenamiento, los gobiernos deben reducir los requisitos de licencia y otros obstáculos que hacen difícil para que éstos entren ocupaciones. En lugar de pedir la práctica de 300 horas para calificar para lavar el cabello, por ejemplo, el estado de Tennessee debería dejar que los peluqueros deciden por sí mismos quién es la mejor persona para contratar.
No todo el mundo va a navegar con éxito en el mercado de trabajo cambiante. Las personas con mayor riesgo de problemas tecnológicos son hombres en trabajos manuales, muchos de los cuales rechazan que toman menos funciones "masculinos" en áreas de rápido crecimiento tales como el cuidado de la salud. Pero para mantener el número de los que se quedan a un mínimo, todos los adultos deben tener acceso a una formación flexible y asequible. Los siglos 19 y 20 vieron impresionantes avances en la educación. Esa debería ser la escala de la ambición en la actualidad.
Corrección (13ª enero): Una versión anterior de esta pieza declaró que el número de cursos disponibles para los singapurenses numerada 500. De hecho, esta cifra se refiere al número de proveedores que ofrecen cursos aprobados.