Are colleges and TAFEs doomed to fail in a job-first world? Don’t bet on it

Blind fold me, spin me around, and ask me to find the target while providing different and conflicting sets of instructions on its location. At the same time, provide me with a wide range of projectiles, of all different shapes and sizes, with significant variations in potential flight paths and whose trajectory cannot be known until the projectile in question is in flight.

This must be how many colleges and TAFEs feel in responding to a jobs-first agenda. The sector is constantly bombarded with demands for new workers, in new industries, with new skills, while at the same time existing industries face persistent labour and skills shortages. A dynamic labour market combined with individual circumstances mean a student’s path to employment is rarely linear or predictable.

Colleges and TAFEs globally are faced with this reality, but is it a lost cause? In response colleges and TAFEs must navigate three key dimensions to shape their education portfolio, to deliver against government, industry, and community expectations, and insure graduates against future changes in the labour market. These dimensions are:

1. The local labour market
2. The portfolio of skills acquired
3. Post tertiary pathways and careers

The first dimension is the local labour market. Colleges and TAFEs largely draw students from between 30 minutes and an hour from their campuses, placing them at the heart of their local economies. However, local economies and communities are complex, with each business and job playing a critical role. In this context, a range of occupations are required to support community cohesion and functional economies.  In my experience, these consist of four categories. “Magnet jobs” are the foundation of local economies, while “supplying and connecting jobs” provide inputs and support movement of goods and people. “Distributed jobs” make an area an attractive place to live. Finally, there are jobs generated by changes to the status quo.

Picture a crop without a picker, a load without a driver, a restaurant without a chef, a hospital without a nurse, infrastructure investment without a builder. Each of these scenarios has short and long-term implications.  In the likely scenario of continued constraints on migration, it is unlikely there will be enough people to fill all the roles available or planned. There is an imperative to manage this risk, to economies and communities (the integrity of the pyramid). In doing so, balance will be required.

More than universities, colleges and TAFEs have a critical role in shaping the supply of workers to meet the many needs of a community and economy. It is hard to please all, yet this is what is being asked. Growth in one industry often means contraction for another. Government and employers speak to future needs but are often less clear on roles to be replaced. This places colleges and TAFEs on the front line. Stray too far from local equilibrium and colleges and TAFEs will risk their social license. At the same time, they must reflect on demands and how they fit with the optimal future shape and composition of their local economy. 

The second dimension is the portfolio of skills acquired. Within the local industry and occupation mix skills are constantly changing in response to a range of different factors. Prior analysis by Nous indicates this can be as much as 30-40 per cent over a four-year period for some occupations, with most in order of 5-15 per cent. New knowledge or practices unlock different ways of doing things that necessitate constant evolution or rebalancing of skills. This is particularly true in areas most exposed to technological or scientific advancement. However, not all skills serve the same purpose. An individual requires a portfolio of skills if they are to thrive in todays or tomorrow’s economy. I like to group skills into three broad buckets. These include: 

• Skills for learning and work. Skills with near universal application. These include core capabilities such as literacy and numeracy, digital literacy, life and human skills, employability skills and other general transferable skills.
• Professional capabilities. Skills that underpin engagement with specific domains of work. They endure such as an understanding of scientific principles but need to be maintained to keep up to date. Most importantly they enable progression to more technical and time critical skills.
• Skills for now. Skills that underpin specific techniques or use of tools. They are shaped by the immediate context and evolve rapidly as technology or practices change. These skills are often scarce and have the greatest premium for individuals and businesses. Over time they may become part of a professional capability or flame out to be replaced by something new.

Colleges and TAFEs are often caught trying to meet both today’s needs and those of the future. Curriculum remains primarily focused on building professional capabilities, with an increasing focus on skills for learning and work. Ultimately, the most useful qualifications or learning pathways will provide solid foundations through skills for learning and work, professional capabilities that enable an individual to engage effectively with a range of occupations and industries over a career and a set of skills for now that help differentiate themselves within the labour market and unlock productivity and value for the individual and the business that employs them.

“Skills for now” are the hardest to get right, especially with the pace of change, the plethora of options, and the steps required to bring new products and content to market. Which ones should colleges and TAFEs focus on? Drawing on evolutionary theory, I believe four preconditions should be met:

The third and final dimension is consideration of post-tertiary pathways and careers. The longer the duration of study, the harder it is to predict the trajectory of a student after graduation. Colleges and TAFEs do not educate people for industries: they prepare them for jobs and careers, which are not defined or bound by sectoral silos, with individuals able to move in many different directions. In our work, we focus a lot on career and industry adjacencies. These are the current job plus one. 

If I am working as a landscape gardener, what are my future options? I could expand the type of work I do by learning new skills; leave my current employer and start a business of my own; pivot to another industry that values my existing skills, such as infrastructure. While some of these paths will be well trodden, others may be unique to me. For colleges and TAFEs, it is important to think about what the purpose of a qualification is, and about the time invested to gain that qualification proportionate to the ongoing relevance of the skills acquired. 

Analysis by Nous indicates that, on average, people move roles about every two years, plus or minus six months. They may move into different role with the same employer, the same role with a different employer, or a different occupation or industry entirely. We have also found individual careers are rarely linear with potential detours along the way.

Take the example of child carers below, where, after eight years around 43.5 per cent of individuals were working in a different occupation group, with some progressing to higher skilled roles and others returning to prior roles. Similarly, 65.5 per cent of individuals who had a profile prior to starting as a child carer were employed in a different occupation.

This requires colleges and TAFEs to think not just about qualification design but how that qualification sits within their broader program portfolio. Is less more, with further learning later, or is more more, providing the best launchpad for the student in their new career? There is also a question of how this relates to the balance between the three types of skills discussed in the previous section.

Each dimension requires careful consideration in the context of program and portfolio design. It is only through reconciling each of these dimensions that colleges and TAFEs can lose the blindfold and give themselves the best chance of meeting government, industry, and community expectations from a jobs-first agenda.

Successful navigation of these three dimensions will position colleges and TAFEs at the forefront of economic growth and job creation in local economies across the globe.