BETWEEN 2010 AND 2025, nearly 80 million “baby boomers” will leave the workforce, just as they entered it between 1960 and 1980. When this exodus occurs, only 20 percent of workers remaining will possess the skills required for most of the jobs being created today. On a global scale, the United States, the European Union, Japan, China, and India will face critical shortfalls of 32 million technically specialized professionals. Throughout the world, the demand for educated professionals is growing faster than populations of people with the required skills.
A more open culture
of collaboration will
ultimately lower costs
of operation and delivery.
The education industry is facing challenges that make improvements more critical than ever:
1. Demand for increased delivery capacity. In many developing countries, half of the population is under age 25. In India, where more than half is under 25, within a decade the working population could peak at 800 million people. Education and skill-set development are crucial to the continued growth of economies like these. And in major economies, most people will change careers several times in their lives. Retraining and continuous learning mean more demand for education.
2. Declining workforce populations in many developed countries. Japan’s workforce population today is about 2.5 times smaller than that of the United States, and it is trending to be five times smaller by 2050. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, by 2030 the European Union can expect to have 14 percent fewer workers than it does today. Innovation in education is crucial to continued productivity as workforce populations decline in many industrialized countries.
3. Poor system performance. A May 2006 Manhattan Institute study found that for every 100 U.S. ninth-graders, 68 graduate from high school on time, 40 enroll in college, and only 27 are still in college a year later. Only 18 earn an associate’s degree within three years or a bachelor’s degree within six. So it is questionable whether or not the United States will continue to have the necessary skilled labor force to compete globally.
Typically underfunded, today’s educational systems must do more with less and are ill-equipped to close the skills gap. Despite billions of dollars in spending, technology has produced inconsistent results. Siloed institutions and enterprise applications, lack of data interoperability, escalating total cost of ownership, and absence of industry standards contribute to inefficient processes, creating barriers to collaboration and innovation.
COMMITMENT STEPS
To address these challenges, the education industry must offer (1) more open access to education for more students, regardless of their institution, the region they live in, or any other factor; (2) more open data and processes within and across institutions to improve quality and outcomes measurements; and (3) a more open culture of collaboration to foster reuse and sharing, to ultimately lower costs of operation and delivery within the industry. With all this openness, addressing security and privacy concerns will be critical. These changes can be enabled by more open technologies. Together, this new paradigm is referred to as “open education.”
Many educational institutions are taking steps to embrace open education by creating more open, flexible processes and data access to improve quality and performance outcomes, while lowering cost. Here are two examples in K-12:
• In 2005, the School District of Philadelphia implemented “SchoolStat,” a data-driven management process, within 270 schools. It quantifies performance in areas such as attendance and school climate and provides school leaders with actionable data from the district’s IBM-powered data warehouse. District improvements since the implementation include a decrease in student suspensions and a decrease in teacher absences.
• Broward County Public Schools in Florida implemented a similar system based on IBM’s On Demand Workplace for Education. With 231 schools, 274,000 students, and 19,000 teachers, tracking student data and achievement was a daunting challenge, and No Child Left Behind mandates required realignment of the district’s educational technology. An IBM data warehouse and portal has saved money, and county leaders can better understand the potential of every student, tailor educational pathways, and engage in more meaningful dialogue with students, parents, and educators.
