Lifelong education: why study all your life

The phrase “Live and learn” can now be taken literally: to be successful, skills need to be updated constantly. Trends in the educational and career market were identified by the CEO of Theory and Practice Natalia Moiseenkova

The very need to learn constantly appeared in connection with cardinal changes in the labor market: if you do not update your knowledge, the likelihood of becoming unclaimed over time increases significantly. What are the main trends in the education and labor market?

The percentage of freelance workers in all countries of the world is growing. These people are more willing to invest in their additional education, which cannot but affect ordinary office workers, who begin to feel insecure in their place. Regardless of the type of employment, all workers now need to:

• constantly monitor the skills in demand and learn them;
• learn to be in fact “an entrepreneur of oneself”, that is, to “sell” one’s competencies on the market;
• learn to plan your finances.

Previously, there was a stereotype that some “downed pilots” are going to get a second specialty – once successful specialists who, for some reason, were left without work and cannot find a new one for a long time. Now it is a normal way for any person.

The first higher education has depreciated: often it is received not so consciously, it does not always determine the future path, but it gives an understanding of how to study, teaches systemic thinking and some other useful skills.

The principle from “Through the Looking Glass”: to stay in place, you need to run, to get somewhere – you need to run twice as fast.

Now you need to constantly move and learn something new, even just to maintain your position, not to mention career growth.

For any new project, it is more profitable and faster to hire a separate team with the appropriate competencies for the period of its implementation, and then dissolve everyone.

Pensions as a format of some kind of future insurance are becoming a thing of the past. More and more people understand that they will work to the “victory end”. The general trend towards population aging plays a role here: according to the World Labor Organization, In 10 years, the average age of every worker in the world will be 41. And companies will only really need these people if they have all the necessary skills.

Many people now need new skills for their jobs, such as programming and data science knowledge.

When we talk about points of growth in the economy, they are always located not in one industry, but in related ones: biotechnology, agricultural technology.

Since the emergence of the first projects in 2008 that made it possible to study remotely, online services have changed the approach to education and give access to it to almost everyone. Examples of such projects: Khan Academy, Udemy, Coursera, Ecole 42, in our country – “School 21”.

Previously, everyone wanted to send their children to the faculties of economics and management. However, what the child would do after that was poorly understood. Now polls show that 95% of parents want their children to become programmers.

At the same time, the biggest salary dynamics is not at all in the IT field, but in agriculture, which is considered the least attractive industry among Russian parents. They simply do not understand that new technologies will soon radically change this area and make its specialists promising.

According to forecasts, in 10-30 years the following will be in demand:

• Data Scientist;
• Digital marketer;
• Social Media Manager;
• Market Research Analyst;
• Project Coordinator.

Also remaining in demand (and will be at least for the next ten years) teachers, sales managers and recruiters.

At the same time, many completely new professions will appear very soon:

• biomedical engineer;
• synthetic biology engineer;
• digital rehab consultant;
• drone pilot/controller;
• smart home technician;
• 3D printer and robot technician;
• genetic engineer;
• virtual reality designer;
• guide of the personal trajectory of education;
• end-of-life planner or memorializer.

In the classical understanding of the education system, there is a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, then some go to a business school, followed by the so-called executive education. Inside, there are different forms – offline, online, mixed or blended education. In addition, there may be various professional certifications.

Now this is considered an outdated model, because the attitude towards a diploma as a certain value is changing. Professional competencies that you can apply come to the fore. In addition, forms of microlearning are becoming popular, allowing you to choose different thematic topics from several courses and assemble an interesting course personally for yourself and your needs.

Various universities and online projects practice so-called certificates of excellence or skill certificates, which are often more important than your classical diploma. It is likely that the future lies not with one diploma from a conditional business school, but with a set of such certificates.

Now such a format of education is popular, in which, in addition to the standard teacher-student model, there is also a student-student model. It manifests itself through discussions, checking each other by students, joint project work. The introduction of practical cases into the educational process sometimes makes communication with a classmate more useful than with a professor.

Every few years new breakthrough technologies appear. They become a kind of bifurcation points that radically change the economy. Right now it’s all about:

• biotechnologies;
• robotics;
• everything that has the prefix “neuro” (for example, neurotechnologies).

Already now we need to learn how to detect such impact points, and also try to somehow connect our work activities with them in order to increase our “value” as a professional in the future and do something really important and interesting.

Previously, candidates were searched, evaluated, the most talented of them were selected, and further cooperation continued with them. Now the main approach is to find conditions for the effective training of each individual person. And this is a very positive trend: it means that everyone will be able to find an acceptable approach and a suitable program for themselves in order to master certain competencies.

In 2016, creativity was ranked 10th in the top 10 skills of the future, in 2020 it moved up to 3rd. A creative approach, as the ability to combine knowledge, to see the task from different angles, will be necessary for almost all specialists. In the first place among the competencies of the future is critical thinking.

Previously, when talking about people in demand, they used the abbreviation STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths – “science”, “technology”, “engineering” and “mathematics”), but now it has turned into STEAM: “A” has been added, which means Art.

Interestingly, the need for some skills is gradually decreasing: if in the same 2016 the ability to persuade and negotiate was in great demand, today this trend is gradually changing, as more and more decisions in the future will be made based on data analysis.