A changing world requires that curricula be adapted to create graduates who are employable
In 1970, futurist and author Alvin Toffler wrote in Future Shock: “The technology of tomorrow requires not millions of lightly lettered (wo)men, ready to work in unison at endlessly repetitious jobs, it requires not (wo)men who take orders in unblinking fashion, but (wo)men who can make critical judgments, who can weave their way through novel environments, who are quick to spot new relationships in the rapidly changing reality.”
These prophetic words are a call for institutions of higher education to critically assess what they teach and how they teach. This is in light of the higher education sector girding itself for the influx of thousands of students about to hit their campuses.
Of the hundreds of thousands of applicants, only a few thousand fortunate ones have been accepted. Many of them will carry the scars of having navigated complex matters of funding, accommodation and a bureaucratic application process. Placement at an institution of higher learning will overcome another hurdle in their quests to obtain a qualification that can unlock opportunities for employment, prospects for a brighter future, a potential ticket to exit South Africa and, most of all, escape the trap of unemployment that has over 40% of young people in a vice grip of despair.
At any given moment in South Africa there are in excess of one million students at universities and other higher education institutions. Many of them, throughout their secondary schooling, have regularly navigated the treacherous labyrinths of crime, drugs, gender-based violence, poverty and unemployment. To have achieved a bachelor’s pass under such testing conditions shows resilience and aspiration. And, for them, an opportunity to study and pursue a dream is worth fighting for. It’s no surprise that many institutions are paralysed by student unrest when they face the threat of exclusion for academic or financial reasons.
With so many of South Africa’s future human assets engrossed in higher learning, imagine the potential to be unlocked if this human resource was sufficiently skilled, mentored and nurtured. Imagine what value they could bring to the modern economy and South Africa’s future prospects.
So, South Africa’s future sustainability is intricately linked to what happens in higher education. These institutions are the custodians of the country’s future. Faculty and administrative staff play unique and honourable roles in providing the best in learning and development opportunities for their charges.
But the following key questions arise. Are higher education institutions capable of delivering these lofty goals? Are these institutions in sync with the demands of a rapidly changing world? These are important questions for higher education management and practitioners to reflect upon.
A recent Statistics South Africa Quarterly Labour Force Survey highlighted the high unemployment among the youth, irrespective of education level. There is therefore a need for critical introspection. In the same way that commercial enterprises reflect on their successes and failures at financial year-end, so too should those in higher education. Graduation is a good yardstick but employment statistics provide a more relevant measure.
Educational curricula should be informed by what’s happening in the world. When job markets are roiled by disruptive digital innovations, political complexity, economic uncertainty, rising ecological and political threats and diminishing resources, different competencies and cognitive skills are needed. Hence, teaching and learning need to pivot away from traditional modes of passive learning.
The reality that our young people will live in requires new ways of thinking, living and consuming. It requires reflective practitioners who are critically minded, creative, empathetic, problem-solvers and also entrepreneurial.
Benchmarking teaching and learning outcomes against Benjamin Bloom’s taxonomy of observable knowledge categories is one way of ensuring that appropriate cognitive skills are being developed. In addition, having academic faculty undertaking research collaborations with industry and the private sector, or actively developing case studies with industry, will bring relevance to learning and help it keep pace with the changing world.
How higher education institutions respond to modern global challenges depends on how they define their core mandates. The “publish or perish” practice still prevails at the top research universities in South Africa. Promotion opportunities tend to favour those with excellent research outputs rather than those who excel in teaching or social impact activities. This, unfortunately, has handicapped investment in new curricula, innovative teaching and learning methodologies.
Similarly, students are none the wiser about fully exploiting learning opportunities. Most of them attend higher education to prepare for a professional career in their chosen fields of study and for this they need to obtain a certain number of credits to be certified as competent.
But many of these competencies are only validated on employment and then, in most cases, additional training is required to shape the academic skills to fit the requirements of the professional world. And when market conditions change and certain skills are rendered obsolete due to technology advances or work practice changes, many of these graduates face the risk of losing their jobs.
To remain relevant and responsive to a changing world, learners must own their responsibilities in the teaching and learning processes. At the outset, learning does not start in the classroom. It starts with the self and in the home. Therefore, success in learning is underpinned by personal effort, self-discipline, sacrifice, resilience and aspiration.
To support this, curricula should broaden the scope of learning beyond skills competencies and prioritise critical thinking, innovation, entrepreneurship, social impact and environmental sustainability. Albert Einstein, a brilliant theoretical physicist, and an astute commentator on human nature, defined education as: “What remains, once we have forgotten everything we learned at school.”
Higher education institutions are highly regulated with accountability to a number of regulatory bodies such as the Council on Higher Education and the Department of Higher Education and Training. However, public higher education institutions must serve the needs of society and therefore, transforming higher education curricula in alignment with the way the world is evolving will serve the overlapping goals of facilitating employability as well as contributing to South Africa’s sustainability.
Dr Rudi Kimmie is the interim director at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Aerotropolis Institute Africa. He writes in his personal capacity.