Peter Mandler - Dismantling the myth of educating for future jobs

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Education should aim to assist children in becoming happy, confident, flexible and trainable.

About Peter Mandler

"I am Professor of Modern Cultural History at the University of Cambridge.

I’m a historian of modern Britain and of the modern world. Over the last 20 years, I’ve aligned my work representing historians as academics and teachers with my research in education: I’ve become immersed in the recent history of education. My main interest is asking why people have gotten more and more education over the last generation or two."

Key Points

• The world is changing rapidly. While education cannot prepare students specifically for future tasks, it should provide them with the tools they need to cope.
• Since future challenges are difficult to predict, education should aim to assist children in becoming happy, confident, flexible and trainable.
• Studying a discipline deeply is beneficial to children. This is true despite the fact they may not seek employment in the discipline later in life.

Education is encrusted in all sorts of myths. One such established myth is that we are educating for the future. There’s a factoid currently in circulation which claims, for the generation now in school, something like 50% of their future jobs have not yet been invented. I’m sorry to say that this has again made headlines. Indeed, it was referenced at the World Economic Forum, the gathering of elite business leaders in Davos.

There’s a very bright Canadian blogger who did a little digging and discovered that this particular factoid has been in circulation since the late 1950s; usually spread by leadership groups interested in conveying a future of rapid change while espousing their leadership capabilities.