Australia, we have a problem. Research shows that 90 per cent of jobs created in Australia over the next five years will require a post-secondary qualification and 50 per cent of jobs will require a higher qualification (Australian Universities Accord Interim Report, July 2023). Yet both demand for university places and completion rates are both in steady decline. This reality, combined with the current national skills shortage crisis, calls for forensic self-reflection by governments, industry, and the education sector.
Globally, the pace of technological change has driven a profound shift in how we learn and teach. Through 2021 and 2022, the Covid-19 pandemic turbocharged both the adoption of online learning and communications and a nationwide employment revolution. By February 2022, according to a PwC survey, almost 40 per cent of Australians were looking for a new job.
At every level, I believe in the transformative power of education to change lives. But higher education in Australia is expensive, it’s almost exclusively an urban pursuit, making it exclusive; a system that is outmoded and inaccessible to thousands of Australians. Not everyone learns in the same way, or follows the same pathways, or even wants the same outcome from higher education.
Critically, if only a few people benefit from education or employment or prosperity, everybody loses.
Lack of diversity in our education system leads to the same lack of diversity in our workplaces, in our governments, in our boardrooms, in the start-up and entrepreneurial ecosystems born of Industry 4.0, and, eventually, in our nation’s economic vitality and success.
What is required for this country to really prosper?
In large part, the answer lies in broadening and diversifying the pipelines of learners entering higher education, and this means equipping more people – from all backgrounds and different (st)ages of life – with the right skills, exposing them to role models, and helping them develop transferable skills that build self-determination long before they even consider the prospect of higher education.
The Accord’s Interim Report reaffirms what we have long been working towards at SSE; that the answer lies “in large part in increasing the higher education participation of Australians from under-represented groups – including First Nations people, lower socio-economic groups, people with disability and those from rural, remote, and outer suburban communities.”
As much as 60 per cent of this future enrolment increase needs to come from people in these diverse cohorts in order to achieve population parity in higher education. But how do we engage them when many are neither inclined nor have the means to study a 3, 4, or 5-year degree or, worse, lose their ambition or belief in their own potential long before they even finish high school.
As education providers, as a nation, we need to transform the way we think about education and education delivery, and create genuinely diverse institutions offering truly transformational experiences.
Research tells us that we need to provide access to more online learning; more affordable courses; more recognised microcredential accreditations, and an integrated VET, TAFE and university system actively collaborating with local providers, businesses, governments, and peer support networks to deliver the flexible, transferable skills relevant to succeed in today’s world.
In 1817, John Keats described life as ‘web of mingled yarn’.
In education, as in entrepreneurship, our lives are similarly mingled webs of connectivity; networks of relationships with each other, our communities, with technology and of course, with ourselves. Like a rich tapestry of shared wisdom, knowledge, and repeated practice, it’s time we come together to celebrate the incredible diversity and potential of all Australians, especially those who’ve been historically marginalised, working together to build creative solutions to today’s problems, ensuring tomorrow’s prosperity.
This is Australia’s ‘stitch in time’ moment. Let’s not waste it!
Dr Sarah Jones is CEO of the Sydney School of Entrepreneurship (SSE), Australia’s first and only government-initiated School of Entrepreneurship. In 2023, Sarah was named InnovationAus Awards ‘Innovation Leader of the Year’.
Disclaimer: This article was originally published in The Australian newspaper (digital edition) on 28 November, 2023.
