The future of career education is SaaS, hyper-personalised and set in the real world

As Nelson Mandela said: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

But what is the role of education in a rapidly changing world? And a world in which today’s young people face uncertain future pathways fuelled by the COVID-19 pandemic, globalisation and technological advancement, and who are often stuck learning inside legacy industrialised ‘chalk and talk’, ‘teach to the test’ education models which don’t keep up with the real world, and increasingly see students disengaging or dropping out of education altogether.

For so many students across Australia right now, there are continued challenges as a result of extended lockdowns, ongoing disruptions to day-to-day teaching and learning, and the very real effects of digital screen fatigue. 

Compounding that disengagement is a generation of young people who are given scant opportunity to experiment, explore future career pathway interests, apply their learning, build real-world practical skills and develop relevant industry-facing employability profiles while at school or university.

Are SaaS and edtech innovations the pandemic’s silver lining?

Perhaps one of the silver linings of this brave new world is the forcing function the pandemic has applied to the education sector, catalysing the wide-scale acceleration and adoption of new digital platforms, edtech innovations and SaaS learning technologies, bringing education closer to industry, and more closely meeting real-world shifts in the way we all work, learn, think, communicate and live.

At Future Amp, we believe these shifts are setting the new standard, and that the bright future of education will be in on-demand, multi-format, interactive and personalised learning delivery models that keep pace with the real world, provide equity of access for students in regional, remote, rural and marginalised demographic areas, and offer true learning differentiation enabling students to finally learn at their own pace, any time, from anywhere.

Through our research at Future Amp, we also know that career education is a journey not a destination, but that in current educational settings careers learning is often reduced to a set-and-forget, low priority session with an under-resourced careers advisor or psychometric test undertaken at a time when students are too young, still maturing, and have not yet had exposure to the real world of work, emerging industries and jobs, or developed comprehensive understandings of workforce contexts and requisite skills. 

The question we keep coming back to is how can you make a career pathway decision if you don’t even know what’s out there in the world of work?

Research shows that access to real-world, relevant and relatable careers learning boosts study motivation, educational attainment, future aspirations and successful pathway planning for students by helping them build the skills and capabilities they need to thrive in further education and training and move into a rewarding career.

Research also shows that one third of today’s students who graduate will rely on something other than their ATAR score, such as a career passport or skills-based profile, interview or early entry program to get into a university, post-school course or to successfully gain employment.

We need to better support students to explore, discover, capture and plan their career goals by providing opportunity for on-demand, industry relevant, interactive learning experiences, and not just rely on static Career portfolios, Career Action Plans or psychometric tests that fail to dynamically ‘grow with’ and reflect the student as their career exploration and future pathway interests change.

Discover the real world of work, anywhere, any time

Powerfully, in platforms like Future Amp students can access and discover the real world of work anytime, from anywhere.

The platform houses a library of 100+ virtual Career Mentors (industry experts sharing career stories students can learn from), plus interactive World of Work and Career Passport learner profile features which help students to explore and uncover their industry and job interests, skills, achievements, values and career pathway goals over time. 

This provides students with valuable insights so they can then make better sense of themselves, their passions and interests as they mature, and the real-world industries, jobs and pathways available to them. But it also provides future employers, TAFEs and universities with a comprehensive, up-to-date profile of a student’s individual and personalised skill stack, relevant experience, interests and career goals.

Students can also complete up to 100+ hours of interactive, engaging, industry-backed Australian-Curriculum aligned courses in Future Amp’s extensive Learning Area ecosystem. Courses range from 15 to 60 minutes providing students with self-paced digital learning programs across Job Ready, Employability Skills, Independent Learner, Virtual Work Experience, Human Skills and Startups and Entrepreneurship. Each course completed earns students a Career Credential in their Career Passport, which can be downloaded as a formatted professional resume.

The future of career education is flexible and hyper-personalised

Like all students in their career pathway journeys, the Future Amp platform will continue to change and evolve as we incorporate and iterate on the many learnings we gain working with experts across education, industry and digital learning design, and through listening to and meeting the needs of our current user base of educators and students.

And while the world may be rapidly changing around us all, we remain rock solid on our mission: to provide flexible, on-demand, relatable and personalised education experiences, so we can help more young people make informed decisions as they transform their talents, passions and interests into career pathways that meet their own aspirations, keep up with Australia’s changing workforce needs, and that can - and will - make the future world a better place.

Future Amp is backed by the David Gonski AO Future Minds Accelerator, University of Melbourne (InnovatEd) and leading global and local industries.

Learn more or schedule a product demo today with our team at hello@futureamp.co today.