What if courses are not the answer?

What if courses are not the answer to skills shortages?

We hear a lot now about skills shortages, and the role of universities in supporting upskilling and reskilling[1].

86pc of large orgs face skills shortages[2].

72pc of SMEs are struggling to recruit skilled workers[3].

For many universities and other providers, the response is to offer courses. More and more courses.

Online courses.

Short courses.

Badged courses.

Microcredentials.

Stackable credits.

But what if courses, and credits, are not the answer?

Think about it for a moment.

There have never been more courses out there.

Free courses.

Massive open online courses.

Small private online courses.

Specialisation courses.

Professional certificate courses.

An abundance of courses.

Universities alone have spent countless millions of €$£ creating courses — many of them free or low cost, most of them high quality — over the last 10 years[4].

And yet still we have this skills shortage problem.

If anything, the supposed skills shortage may have worsened with the increasing abundance of courses.

So maybe, just maybe, we don’t understand the problem we propose to solve.

Let’s take a closer look.

Skills are not the same as information or knowledge. Knowledge is theoretical – it is the intellectual, judicious understanding of information[5].

Skills are actions we take in putting knowledge into practice. Skills emerge from practice, application, feedback, reflection, refinement and more practice[6].

By definition, we cannot acquire skills on a course, we develop them through practice and reflection. Courses can support this process, certainly[7]. But it is perhaps naïve, perhaps disingenuous, to present courses as a route to upskilling or reskilling.

Could it be that we simply don’t understand the problem for which courses are our answer?

Perhaps the skills shortage isn’t about skills at all, but about jobs or opportunity or the willingness of employers to train people? A large majority of workers in the UK receive no training from their employers[8]. Perhaps it’s not a skills shortage, but a training shortage, or a shortage of investment and responsibility.

Perhaps if we better understood the problem, we might see that courses are not the solution, or are only part of the solution.

We might see that advice and guidance, including advice on navigating and choosing from the wealth of existing courses, could be part of the answer.

We might see that bootcamps, career accelerators, (micro)internships, placements, career coaching, (micro)mentoring, reflective practice workshops, action learning sets, challenge-based and entrepreneurial learning experiences, and bespoke, learner co-created experiences, may be better suited to the challenge than courses.

We might also see that our attempts to create value, for learners and institutions, by adding to the abundance of courses, rather than providing some things that are scarce[9], such as embodied experiences, practice, feedback, reflection, confidence and psychological capital[10], is a flawed business model.

We might see that individual institutions are not able to meet the challenge alone, and that we need to work in real (not merely symbolic) collaboration with learners and extended networks of government, industry, employers, alumni and community entities, to support individual and community upskilling.

Yet the hammer strikes hard.

Courses.

It’s what universities do.

But perhaps we must learn to do more. Universities might do well to work on really understanding the context, experience, needs, problems and desires of their different users, including users with needs which they are not used to serving, and designing relevant value propositions carefully against these. And then exploiting their network power position to deliver.

(Banner picture by kris krüg entitled ‘superMarket’ (CC BY-SA 2.0). The picture shows a colour photo taken in a supermarket where a shop worker bends to place goods on the shelves stacked high with packets and bottles, while on the floor discarded packaging lays. A black plastic pen hangs from a silver chain on the checkout desk.)

References

[1] UK Parliament (2021) Research briefing: upskilling and retraining the adult workforce. Available at: https://post.parliament.uk/research-briefings/post-pn-0659/ (Accessed 5 September).

[2] Edge Foundation (2022) Skills shortages in the UK economy. Available at: https://www.edge.co.uk/documents/330/DD0878_-_Skills_Shortages_Bulletin_11_DIGITAL.pdf (Accessed 5 September 2023).

[3] The Open University (2022) Business Barometer reveals impact of UK skills shortage. Available at: https://www.open.ac.uk/business/barometer-2022 (Accessed 4 September 2023).

[4] Lee, K. (2020), Universities have invested in online learning – and it can provide students with value for money. Available at: https://theconversation.com/universities-have-invested-in-online-learning-and-it-can-provide-students-with-value-for-money-147061 (Accessed 4 September 2023).

[5] Merriam, S.B., and Bierema, L.L. (2014) Adult Learning: Linking Theory and Practice. Jossey-Bass.

[6] Brown, P.C., Roediger, H.L. III and McDaniel, M.A. (2014). Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning. Belknap Press.

[7] Shackleton-Jones, N. (2019) How People Learn: Designing Education and Training that Works to Improve Performance. Kogan Page.

[8] Brand, A. (2022) Majority of employees do not receive any training at work. Available at: https://hrreview.co.uk/hr-news/majority-of-workers-do-not-receive-any-training-at-work/147115 (Accessed 3 September 2023).

[9] Lovell, N. (2014) The Curve: Turning Followers into Superfans. Penguin.

[10] Harvey, V. (2023) Employability is boosted when we focus on psychological capital. Available at: https://wonkhe.com/blogs/employability-is-boosted-when-we-focus-on-psychological-capital/ (Accessed 3 September 2023).