Supporting lifelong educational pathways demands an end-to-end transformation across curricula, systems and resources as the line between undergraduates and postgraduates blurs. Current undergraduate programs are modeled on rote learning and planned with sector- or role-based careers as an end. However, future working lives are likely to be characterized by multiple career pathways that demand greater agility. Educational institutions will increasingly need to focus on problem-based pedagogies, such as interdisciplinary learning. The new direction announced by the National University of Singapore in September 2020 reflects this, as it encourages students to connect ideas across disciplines and view problems from different perspectives.
For professional education programs, institutions will need to rapidly scale up and reinvent their offerings as demand, particularly for future-ready skills, continues to grow. Institutions will also need to reallocate resources, as well as tap into their rich reservoir of knowledge and teaching talent to redesign content for different audiences and platforms. For example, new media and interactive elements are key to developing content for a digital mass audience on MOOC platforms.
A key area of growth for institutions will be customized training programs for employers with a pressing need to help their workforce apply acquired skills to daily tasks. In view of this need, there is a shift toward digital micro-certifications that summarize achievements as they are completed, which helps to provide assurance to employers and can be used by the workforce to be stacked into a larger lifelong curriculum.
Transforming educational infrastructure
As educational institutions embark on their transformation journey, they will need to acquire and leverage technological capabilities to succeed in customizing and delivering education at scale. However, the delivery of education will only be as good as the ability to access it. Expanding the digital infrastructure and internet connectivity in Southeast Asian markets will be key to making education accessible to all in the region.
Even as governments seek to strategically invest in public institutions and public infrastructure, they must not lose sight of their responsibilities in regulating the private education sector. With the rise of degree substitutes and technology-driven college alternatives, governments will need to set digital learning standards that strike a balance between quality and flexibility. The latter is important to afford training providers the autonomy to offer courses in new fields of study where academic consensus is still being formed and where knowledge resides with industry leaders, not trained educators.
Together with market forces, a more dynamic regulatory environment could help drive the demand and supply of learning opportunities to address current skill gaps. However, building a pipeline of talent with future skills will likely require a more interventionist policy approach. Governments must lead the way in close collaboration with the ecosystem of stakeholders — employers, industry associations, educational institutions and unions — to identify and address the skill gaps in the nation’s workforce. For example, the Indonesian Government has partnered with more than 90 universities and polytechnics, local start-ups, as well as big tech companies to offer its Digital Talent Scholarship since 2018 that aims to address the digital talent shortfall.
Governments play a key role in setting the education agenda and policies to build a nation of lifelong learners. For learning to become integral to working life, this must be supported by a willingness and openness among the workforce and other stakeholders to embrace new ways of training and learning.
