The explosion of education options beyond the traditional university degrees is poorly understood by the general public, experts say. Consumers can now choose from a vast array of short courses, micro-credentials (short courses with certification), and enterprise education options offered by Australia’s universities and colleges, as well as courses from less traditional providers such as LinkedIn Learning and Google Digital Garage.
Keypath Education CEO Ryan O’Hare says the proliferation of terms such as “micro-credentials” can be confusing: “the average person on the street doesn’t have a clue what you’re talking about”. At the same time, he adds, Australian higher education institutions have not made it easy for students to compare courses, including the shorter courses, and choose how to spend their higher education dollars.
Yet five and a half million Australians have a bachelor’s degree, up 30 per cent in the last nine years, O’Hare notes, and many will want “some form of lifelong learning or further education; their employers will demand it, society will demand it”.
Australians these days have less time for education. O’Hare notes the Australian Bureau of Statistics has found adults now work 20 per cent more in terms of hours than they did ten years ago. The time-poor will choose shorter higher education courses potentially from non-traditional providers, he says, adding “those types of learning are going to only increase, and AI is only going to accelerate”.
Learners in Australia are finding their own way into higher education, many flocking to less traditional models such as the institution co-created by Microsoft, the University of Technology Sydney, Macquarie University and TAFE NSW: the Institute of Applied Technology (digital).
“We’ve had a unique opportunity to co-create an educational offering,” says Microsoft Future Skills Lead Yasminka Nemet. “To really sit down together and look at the learner in terms of what they need in order to be able to move into technology roles. It was really bringing the best of everything we do to the table.”
The Institute offers a range of short courses, including micro-credentials. The non-credentialled micro-skill offerings are free – subsidised by the NSW government.
So far Institute has had more than 135,000 enrolments, with the typical learner aged between 35 and 42 and looking to acquire job-relevant skills. Institute courses including cloud computing, artificial intelligence, big data and cyber security have been designed to assist the learner move into technology roles.
“Our university partners are very strong in the theories of knowledge required to be successful, our TAFE NSW partner has always been very focused on practical skills, and industry is very attuned to implementation,” Nemet says, adding the crowd of short course offerings now available from various institutions had made choice difficult for those looking to upskill.
The Institute partners wanted to make course choice clearer, easier and more affordable for those people who might want to get started in a career in cyber but might not have the formal educational background to make the move, she adds.
“It’s very difficult for most people to discern the best option for getting to the role that they’re looking for,” she says, “other than moving into a formal, traditional offering, which may be out of reach in terms of time and cost.”
A further dimension is the idea of learning within “the flow of work” rather than working and studying in separate blocs of time,” Nemet says. Learners are discovering the workflow learning model works, she adds, and the more closely the model is supported, either through partnership with business or by shaping the course around the learner, the better.
“We discover and pursue knowledge in the process of having to do something, and that’s not really easy to do with our traditional model,” she adds. “It’s a wonderful experience for the learner.”
Meanwhile, corporate Australia is collaborating with educational institutions to build tailored courses for employees to boost technical knowhow and engagement.
UNSW dean of life-long learning Nick Wailes notes that this “enterprise education” is an emerging field. Organisations recognise they need to build critical skills in their workforce and they turn to universities and other educational institutions to create suitable courses.
“As a university, we partner with a lot of organisations to help them take their workforce and get them prepared for the future and equip them with the skills that they need,” Wailes says.
Advanced technology platforms allow employees to develop new skills and study in short, sharp bursts while they’re working, he adds, and the platforms can provide immediate assessment and feedback.
UNSW has also built a ten-hour online asynchronous Artificial Intelligence Fundamentals micro-credential course which has proved popular both with external organisations and with the university’s staff.
“It’s a B2B product we’ve been developing for a while,” Wailes says, adding that although the university launched the course quietly, 2,500 of about 7,000 university employees throughout the organisation have already signed up for it.
“We’re selling (it) to organisations, because we know one of the barriers to adoption of AI is disparate levels of people’s understanding and some sort of fear around what they can do and what they can’t do,” he adds, saying many organisations have begun to deploy AI tools, but employee adoption is either low, or there is resistance. “Part of that is people are not confident about what it is or how they can use it,” Wailes says.
Singapore’s government has created a financial and tax structure to incentivise the private sector to scale up the adoption of micro-credentials. “The (Singapore) government has identified clear areas and the education system has mobilised around that to deliver it,” he adds, describing the uptake as one of the most successful in the world.
“I think we need to help organisations invest in the skill development of their individuals,” Wailes says. “The great organisations do that themselves, but not all organisations feel like they can do that in the current environment.”