maanantai 18. kesäkuuta 2012

Final Dissemination in Helsinki 28 March 2012




On 28 March was the day when the country findings were presented to a great congregation of education and learning experts of Finland at Tekes headquarters, hosted by Mr Pekka Ollikainen of Tekes Learning Solutions Programme.

The objective of the day was to discuss the trends and signals in the five countries - what will the learning and educations scenario look like 5-10 years from now and to discuss what are the opportunities for Finland  Secondly, we discussed the Finnish narrative in the learning and education space - what should we do in order to make Finland a world leader and enable her to capitalise on the existing brand.
The questions for group discussions were:

1.What are the common trends that are changing the education and learning landscape?
2.What are the most exciting opportunities you heard?
3.What are the Finnish strengths that can be leveraged within these opportunities?
4.What kind of collaborative partnerships would be needed to meet the new opportunities?

PROJECT FINDINGS

Despite the differences between the studied countries, certain trends and phenomena are common for all of them: need for education reform, need to increase the quality of teacher training, increased private sector presence because of government's inability to meet the changing requirements not only financially but also content-wise, digitalisation, need to increase industry cooperation and up-skilling and re-skilling of adult learners. -  It was interesting to identify so many common factors between developed countries and emerging markets, and with very different educational systems, for that matter.

Japan with its rapidly aging society, facing strong changes in the traditional life long employment at one company and slowing economic growth, has need for educational reforms to meet with the up-skilling and re-skilling of the aging popular in the space on non formal environment. Lifelong employment is not any more guaranteed and the Japanese need to be prepared and coached to face this change. Traditionally the employing corporates used to impart the life-long learnig opportunities but that is not any more the situation. The demographic quotient seems to be the key driving factor in Japan.

Digitalisation, gamification and personalised learning plans are coming strongly in K-12 and in higher education. Japan also needs to open up more internationally.  Finnish teacher training in particular is highly regarded in Japan. The high competitiveness between individuals and the need to be successful from early age are still there, but according to the study this reality is changing and the bigger picture needs to be taken into account by developing more equal opportunities for children and for adult learners, too.

USA with a very fragment educational system (there are 52 state level educational systems) is facing diverse challenges in creating more uniform systems and common core curricula and more standardized measurement systems.
The main general trends are blended learning, digitalisation with BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) phenomenon, open educational resources, common core curriculum and personalised learning and the use of social media as learning platform. Interestingly, the corporate learning trends seems to match very much with the K-12 trends.

USA on one hand has many really progressive, state-of-the art schools but it also has a big number of schools with poorly performing students. One of the major bottlenecks, which also applies to the other countries studied, is the teacher training. In the US teacher career is not seen as a lucrative one and therefore the teacher material and also motivation are not very good.

New business models are evolving in the changing scenario (eg. trends towards Social Media Business models) and also private funding is entering more into the pictures. Edutech companies and publishers and analytics companies are mushrooming and challenging the traditional business models.

China as a big emerging market is facing a multitude of challenges but also offering various opportunities.  China has launched in 2010 a National Plan for Medium and Longterm Education and Development reform (a 10 year programme) focusing on life long learning, targeting to rural areas and disadvantageous segments, improving overall quality and undertaking systemic reform.
The working population is still increasing for some time and currently the percentage of degree holders in China is still low. However, today is has become almost mandatory to acquire some diploma level skills on top of the university degree as the working life requirements have rapidly changed, demanding more versatile skill sets. World Bank is currently carrying out a study to better match the gap between industry needs and what the education sector provides - again the same phenomenon than in the other countries.

Shanghai area as such is a very progressive educational hub with state-of-the art schools and progressive teacher training methologies being applied. In the metropolitan areas of China the modern trends like online and mobile learning and digitalisation are happening but the vast rural China faces a completely different reality.  According to the study, a lot of material is available online but a common platform or sharing tool is missing.  There is still also a lot room for improving the technology aided learning.

India is another example of a densely populated emerging countries but with a unique demographic quotient: almost 50 per cent of the Indians are below 25 years. The British gave their educational system in India but currently the rapidly growing and evolving market needs badly a reform not only in K-12 but also in higher education and in skills development. India has around 300 universities with over 22 000 affiliated colleges of various quality, producing annually xxxx graduates. India also faces a major language related challenge: the Indian constitution recognises 22 languages and even if English is quite widely spoken, even at higher education level other languages are used and needed.

For India to keep up with her GDP growth it is mandatory to train and upskill 350 million Indians by 2020 - a huge task which the government cannot handle on its own.  India's big metrocities have some state-of-the art schools and universities but again, as in China, the rural areas lack the basic school infrastructure and teacher absenteism is a major hurdle. Teaching career is not lucrative because of low salaries and almost non-existing career path.

India needs a lot of private and foreign participation not only in the funding but also in systemic development and expertise in the space of formal education. The Human Resource Development Ministry of India has initiated a very ambitious initiate of connecting xxxx villages in India with broadband connections, enabling distant learning in the remote areas.

Skills development is a major challenge but also an opportunity for foreign collaborators to help India to bridge the gap. On hand, India need to be able to create more industrial and manufacturing jobs and needs skilled manpower, but on the other hand India faces also the challenge of only around 30 per cent of undergraduates being directly employable. Currently the employeers need to either provide them inhouse training for an average 6-month period, or to outsource the skills development to third parties. The undergraduates are very young by the Finnish standards (20-21 years) and they seldom have any work experience and hence need to be trained starting all the way from soft skills.

Other trends in India are life long learning, digitalisation and mobile learning.

Russia was the third emerging market in our study.  Again, there are similar trends there: inclusion of rural and less priviledged segments of society, gap between corporate needs and educational outcomes, online learning and a strong need to enhance life long learning. The Russian educational system has opened up for international cooperation. The Russian government has launched an Innovative Economy Strategy 2020, indicating clear changes in policy making.

New educational standards are being introduced and at the same time more resources are allocated in including more of the vast population in the initiatives, making good education more accessible. Russia has several state-of-the-art innovative educational institutes but again faces the rural challenge.
According to the study, the vocational education system lags behind which offers opportunities for foreign collaborations. Introduction of National Qualification Framework in under discussions but there is no holistic approach the reforms needed.


The country summaries will soon appear on www.finnode.fi - due to summer holiday season there may be some delay!


keskiviikko 2. toukokuuta 2012

Future Session 2 March

More than hundred Finnish educators and education experts attended FinNode Future Session in which the findings of the participating countries, USA, China, India, Russia and Japan were discussed. The country teams had been asked to discuss three major topics: platforms, infrastructure and ecosystem; skills development and competency building and teacher training.
In all the five countries there are reforms ongoing and many of the pain points have been identified, whether in K-12, higher education or vocational training. Technology is seen as an enabler and big hopes are set in the impact of digitalisation of educational material, online learning, mobile learning, content creation. Adult education and vocational educational both in reskilling and upskilling is a common trend - shared by an ageing population like Japan and by India, where 50 per cent of the population is under 25 of years and where the government has the challenging task to have 350 million skilled and semi-skilled people to be trained by 2025.- Finnish expertise in vocational training and the widely inculcated life long learning concept would be in high demand! Industry-academia collaborations and feasible operational models are another big area of opportunity.

Another common trend is that the public sector alone is not able to provide funding for the education and learning sector and private participation and funding is necessary. New business models are being developed and in particular emerging markets like India, Russia and China need also foreign expertise.  In the USA venture capitalist investors are already much present in particular in the edu tech companies and this phenomena is expected to spread. Silicon Valley for instance has lots of Indian origin tech companies and it remains to be seen, to what extent the "made in USA" services and business models will spill over to India!

Online, mobile learning, asyncronic learning, blended learning, informal learning and how to build creditation around it - again trends present in every country,  calling for more solutions and scalable business models.
The strong Finnish education brand is generally very well known among the educators, with the exception of India, where Finland is not yet known in this space. Teacher education would clearly offer opportunities in all the countries, whether in the teacher education per se but also in areas like students' career counselling, curricula design and personalised learning programmes.

From Russia we also had an interesting case study "Skolkovo Open University", a new format of university (http://www.skolkovo.ru/public/en/)
The Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO is an innovative international institution of the future. It is focused on developing the unique leadership and communicative skills required for the new type of manager who will be in demand in the 21st century - the age of human resources. In providing practical knowledge, SKOLKOVO trains business leaders who will apply their professional skills in dynamically developing markets; leaders who will set up and run their own businesses and lead the development of the Russian economy.

From the group discussions in the various locations in Finland we collected the following points:
-  Main vision for Finland's future success should be in vocational adult learning, with focus on emerging countries
-  Business model: Finland should focus on a mixture of technology and content by creating packages and utilising platforms like Future Learning Finland
- To better understand how to create business models which would join together companies, educators and researchers: Finland needs "holistic attack" with strong industry presence

- Within 10 years from now, books will not be used but all the content will be digital and there will be more focus on content - how to capitalise on that?
- Finland needs to partner up with global big players in order to create scalability and co-creation
- Finland as a role model in teacher education: what learnings can we take in our experience for building export products

- Finland needs a national strategy which identifies the opportunities and shares them - can Future Learning Finland be the platform?
- Finland should be smart enought to concentrate on what she is good at and build on that:
tailored product and service portfolio needed - more deeper understanding of global needs is required.  Revenue models are important!

- We have to be able to create a vision what will sell in 10 years time: by 2020 edu services should be the cornerstone of Finland's success

- We should learn to collaborate more inside Finland and commit to long term planning and we should be ready to take more risks
- Innovative business models needed: future teacher training schools, mentoring system, science workshops or festivals: creating science with corporate world and create space in schools for testing and practising the ideas
- Business element is needed in the learning and education - private and public need to join hands
- Building a Finnish teacher education centre model and selling it globally

- Finland is badly behind in online, mobile and e-learning  - are we aware of this?

- to initiate a value chain creation (where marketing and sales are fundamental), identify sufficient funding and human resources, get commitment from research bodies and edu institution and this exercise will lead into productisation and into a robust portfolio

- Concrete pilot projects are needed as "test labs", eg in India create a collaboration with an NGO: when education starts making an impact on the livelihood, its value is perceived much better than just being persuaded to send one's kids to school!

- Finland should become a world leader in tailormade training services - we will need new structures and a completely new mindset as the current model is not flying - we should become truly solid professionals in the world's eyes and have a large pool of top experts speaking on the global arenas and getting paid for it!

- the momentum is now - there are other countries, also China, which are on the same mission

- the game is being played outside Finland - we need more Finnish presence like Team Finland in the global markets

tiistai 31. tammikuuta 2012

Understanding the US edu and learning market

I had a wonderful opportunity to visit the USA with our US project manager Maria Pienaar, who had organised a very diverse programme in NYC, Washington DC and Silicon Valley, California. The final icing on the cake was the Cicero conference at Stanford University, where I had to opportunity to meet a bunch of top guys in the field - it is definitely great to meet people much smarter than myself!

We met policy makers, thought leaders, edutech companies, professors and researchers, who openly shared their views of the US education and learning trends and challenges. And Finland with PISA results was on everybody's lips - the BIG question remains how could Finland really monetize on the farspread reputation of being exceptional?

The system in the USA is very fragmented. The major decision makers in K-12 are the 14 000 school districts which can make decisions in a rather independent manner. One big bottleneck in the formal education is the low prestige of teaching profession, which makes that the smartest brains do not end up being teachers. However, there are lots of really innovative advanced schools so the reality, as always in big countries, is not that black-and-white.

Blended learning seems to be the order of the day: everyone was talking about it. However, at the same time there are expert voices saying that there is a lot of hype on e-learning, virtual learning and technology's role in learning. Globally it is important to understand that technology per se will never transform learning; the transformation needs to be much deeper than just introducing devices for students. - Digitalisation of learning material and content is major trend; according to a source in five year's time 90 per cent of the material will be in digital format. This trend means a huge shift in traditional publishing industry's revenue model!

Vocational education and life long learning are not only future trends but also part of the existing reality. The changes in traditional industry structure creates huge need to reskill and upskill large numberf of citizens of diverse age groups.

Again, the discussion was often flowing on the scalability of business - it is evident that new, innovative business models are required. This is particularly true for Finland - how could a small country otherwise offer expertise and know-how e.g. in teacher training?

keskiviikko 14. joulukuuta 2011

Future of Learning - From Global Vision into Finnish Vision

Learning and Education - what are the trends, visions and sign-posts globally? What are the hot topics, needs and opportunities which Finland can grasp and turn into business opportunities, capitalizing on its unique educations expertise?

"Future of Learning" is a global FinNode project (www.finnode.fi) run simultaneously in the USA, Russia, China, Japan and India. The approach is to study the learning ecosystems in the five countries, identify future roadmaps in each country through selected key interviews, elaborate the findings through an open dialogue, online and face-to-face, engaging experts and stakeholders. The objective is to build a visionary roadmap for Finland with a time span of 5-10 years from now, in order to help Finland become a true forerunner in the field of education and learning.