Why Education needs a Dr Brink
IN JUST 14 years’ time, approaching 10,000 local jobs will be lost in Guernsey due to automation and digitisation, according to consultants PwC’s chief strategy officer for the Channel Islands.
That’s about 30% of the current workforce and is a devastating prospect for those currently employed in at-risk categories – particularly financial services administrative roles – and for the island’s public finances.
Fewer people employed in well-paid jobs means a dramatic fall in tax revenues and a corresponding increase in those needing financial assistance.
Yes, this is crystal ball stuff, but the PwC view matches that of other economic forecasters and the island is already seeing job losses and a reduction in the number of businesses as organisations merge and seek economies of scale.
The particular relevance of this, however, is that technology can create as many new jobs as those that will be lost – but only for those with the relevant skills.
This inevitably poses the question of how readily – if at all – the current focus on developing a new educational model is preparing islanders for a future of ‘brains and ’bots’, as the partnership of human skills working with artificial intelligence is known.
One of Education’s biggest problems in this area is credibility. It does not have an educational specialist on tap like Health and the CCA’s Dr Brink, in whom the island instinctively has confidence to lead them through troubling times.
The States, as the harbour debate demonstrated, frequently knows better than the experts. Not so with Dr Brink, as this community knows to its benefit.
Education, however, is pulled every which way by parents, teachers, unions and politicians without any obvious figure of authority who commands respect when saying, ‘in circumstances such as this, we must do…’
The working landscape was changing rapidly before Covid and that process has accelerated unbelievably since. Debating what education looks like in the absence of selection at 11 is important, but ultimately limiting.
The focus needs to be on a model that upskills young islanders and prepares them for a labour market that will look nothing like today’s when they enter it. That debate has yet to begin.