The World of Work is Changing and the Education Systems Need to Keep Up
The World Economic Forum’s 2017 white paper Realizing Human Potential in the Fourth Industrial Revolution noted that "educational curricula cannot remain fixed, as career paths change faster, and are less linear, than ever before."
The technological advances of the last twenty years have injected the world of work and the labour market with unprecedented dynamism. Career paths are evolving faster than ever before, with new jobs, and even sectors, appearing overnight. Similarly, some jobs that have provided steady careers for centuries have disappeared just as fast.
To stay competent and competitive in such a fast-changing environment, job-seekers need to be educated by systems that can adapt their curricula in real-time to the rapid flux of the 21st century.
Unfortunately, most curricula are slow to change and quick to date. This is partly due to institutions' failure to embrace technology and partly down to a failure to put the learner's own needs at the heart of their education.
Alison - Always Adapting
Alison's online model means that we can constantly monitor our courses’ relevancy and update the learning content to account for new information and developing circumstances. Any regular Alison Learner will have come across hundreds of "Revised" courses, as we strive to provide our Learners with the most up-to-date and practical material.
Our free coronavirus course, for example, was created in such a way that its agile format would allow for it to be regularly updated as the Covid-19 pandemic evolved. The course has gone through over a dozen versions as we've altered it based on the changing situation.
The coronavirus awareness course has been completed by more than 350,000 people and was recently awarded the European Economic and Social Committee's Civil Solidarity Prize. The success of the course has, in part, been down to our ability to adapt the learning content in real-time and in reaction to developing circumstances.
Working with Self-Publishers
In January, a briefing on education by the World Economic Forum outlined how the "shifting demand for skills across industries will require that curricula be updated and adapted regularly, as they are informed by the evolution of labour markets."
Alison is not limited by a prescribed curriculum. Our range of over 2500 free-to-learn courses is always undergoing expansion as our Self-Publishing Tool is utilised by experts around the world to create quality courses and expand our educational offerings.
We're constantly commissioning and facilitating new courses from industry leaders to be able to provide our students with the most cutting edge qualifications desired by the job market. All the courses published on Alison are reviewed by our in-house experts who guarantee that courses don’t just contain up-to-date content and expertise, but also follow the best pedagogical practices. (Our regular Introduction to Self-Publishing webinars are the perfect starting point for any subject matter experts interested in expanding our curriculum with a course of their own.)
Tailored Education
Alison's educational model puts the learner's priorities and requirements at the heart of the learning experience. We empower our learners by providing them with the tools they need to construct their own curricula in accordance with their individual learning needs and career goals. Besides recommending similar courses to ones they've already taken, Alison has a range of functions that aid our learners in finding the specific courses they need to pursue their desired career path.
Learners can use the Find Courses for Specific Jobs feature to search for courses that correspond to the career they wish to pursue, finetuning their search based on industry, career path or occupation. The Get Career Skills and Guidance section allows learners to pinpoint courses specific to their needs based on their life stage. Depending on whether you're a high school student, university student or seeking a promotion, Alison will provide you with a set of courses tailored to help you achieve your goal. Dynamic and adaptive curricula may be the future of learning.
At Alison, it's what we do everyday.
