Why We Need To Disrupt Careers Education

what do you want to be

when you grow up it’s a question i’m

sure most of us have been asked at some

point in our lives

usually when we were teenagers maybe

even younger

and for some of us the answer is almost

instinctive

but for most of us it takes a little bit

of time to figure it out

at the age of eight i wanted to be an

archaeologist

you might think that’s a bit of a

strange choice for an eight-year-old and

maybe i had a family member who was one

and that’s where i got the idea from but

i’d never met an archaeologist

in fact i only knew such a thing existed

because there was a tv show i was

obsessed with as a child

it was called time team each episode a

team of archaeologists would take on a

new project

and through their excavations they would

uncover the secrets of the past

i was intrigued and hooked and i thought

about being an archaeologist for a while

but i was 8 and i had no idea how to

become one

by 10 i had already moved on to a new tv

show

called csi i thought gil grissom was as

cool as you could get

and forensic science became my new

career interest

that year i even asked for and received

a microscope set for christmas

by 12 i was using computers in school

nothing that kids today would recognize

they were these big old style monitors

with big back boxes that took up a whole

desk

and we saved things to floppy disks

instead of to the cloud

i learned quickly played strategy games

became fast at typing

and even then i thought computers could

be the future and a job working with

them

would be a pretty safe bet but i didn’t

know any computer programmers

or software engineers and there were

some stereotypes at the time

that computer programmers were all men

or really good at math

and it just didn’t feel like something i

could be

ultimately i didn’t become an

archaeologist

or a forensic scientist or even a

software engineer

but what my story illustrates is how

young people’s ideas for the future

for what job they want to do when they

grow up and who they can be

is so heavily influenced by their

environment and by what they are exposed

to

my generation were the saturday morning

tv kids so it follows that the jobs i

knew about were the ones i discovered

through tv

today’s kids they’re the internet and

youtube generation

and it shows in 2019 the word influencer

was added to the dictionary

so my first message today young people’s

ideas for the future

are heavily influenced by their

environment and by what they believe

they have the potential to become

around five years ago i participated on

a local career program

as a mentor and was paired with 17 year

old thomas

thomas was a bundle of energy and

creativity

and he was so engaging and witty and had

so much potential

but at times he just couldn’t see it in

himself

he was completing a qualification in it

and at the time i offered him 12 weeks

of work experience

as well as a listening ear and a little

bit of guidance

when the program ended we decided to

keep in touch and around a year later we

got to chatting

and thomas just seemed so demotivated

and a little bit lost

at the time i was working on a project

to digitize

40 years worth of hr records it was as

bad as it sounds

and i knew i could use a little help so

i asked for some budget to bring thomas

back in

this time though things were very

different

thomas had dropped out of his i.t course

and his confidence had taken a hit

during our conversations he said he

thought he wanted to go to university

but he wasn’t too sure what he wanted to

study or even how to get there

at around the same time he had become

engaged with a local youth support

initiative and through it he realized

that what he really wanted to be

was a youth worker so together we came

up with a plan to get him back into

college to finish his it qualification

which would enable him to apply for a

degree in community youth work

i am so proud today to say that thomas

is almost finished the first year of

that program

so my second message today young people

can become overwhelmed by choice

and it’s easy for them to feel a little

bit stuck i’m sure that’s something we

can all relate with

and structured interventions can help to

get them back on track

you might be wondering why i’m sharing

my story and thomas’s story with you

today

it’s because we are currently facing a

significant and detrimental skills

challenge

and it’s only going to get worse a

massive 75 percent of businesses in

northern ireland say they aren’t

confident they can fill future skilled

rules

innovation and technology is constantly

changing the landscape of the world

we live and work in and that rate of

change is ever increasing

we throw around these phrases like

industry 4.0 and the fourth industrial

revolution

and it includes great things like smart

factories and automation robotics and

the internet of things

but when we talk about these things we

often forget one important aspect

people today some of the most in demand

jobs

didn’t exist ten or in some cases even

just five years ago

things like a social media manager a

podcast producer

an app developer even a blockchain

engineer

and there are so many more and we will

continue to see new jobs emerge in the

future

a popular estimate predicts that 65

percent of children entering primary

school today

will ultimately end up working on a job

that doesn’t even exist yet

65 percent

we are taking steps in the right

direction we know that today

we rarely have a job for life anymore

and instead we need to focus on

transferable skills

that are in demand by all employers

things like communication

problem solving creative thinking and

even resilience

we also know that it’s more beneficial

to offer young people choice

that better suits their learning styles

don’t get me wrong

i’m a graduate and university is great

but it’s not the only route to success

we now recognize that vocational

learning and practical experience are

equally important too

so we are getting there but there’s

still a lot of work to do

there’s one crucial piece of the puzzle

that i think is always left out

on its careers education careers

educators have been historically and

continue to be

underfunded and under-resourced the

world of work is changing so quickly

it’s impossible to keep up all sectors

have changed so much

yet careers education hasn’t

need an industry-led approach that

equips our young people

with up-to-date information on the most

in-demand skills

and as a result benefits industry with

reduced bottlenecks in the skills

pipeline

we need to be creative innovative and

collaborative in our approach to careers

education

to better inform our young people of the

wide range of career paths and jobs

available to them

and we need to extend that engagement to

careers teachers and parents

two of the most influential sources of

careers advice

we really need to identify a young

person’s attributes and talents

to be able to offer them opportunities

that are better matched to their talents

and passions

i don’t think it’s a coincidence that my

school reports often said that i was

very talkative and could easily distract

other students

who knew that years later i would be

using those skills today to give a ted

talk

we need to make a connection between the

subjects that young people study

and the careers they want to pursue and

we need to start doing it at a much

earlier age

my final message the future of work

looks so different than it does today

the rules of the game are changing

we need an innovative creative and

collaborative approach

to careers education so consider this

your call to action

the current skills crisis and the lack

of investment and support in careers

provision

affects all of us businesses educators

the wider economy parents but especially

our young people

the way careers education is delivered

needs to be disrupted

to allow our young people to fulfill

their potential and contribute to the

economy and society

we need to act now to enable our young

people to foresee their own futures

and to answer that one all-important

question

what do you want to be when you grow up

thank you