- By William Bell

Around the world, businesses are concerned about their talent pipelines. Though there are millions of workers in every country who say they are looking for a job, there is not always a good match between vacancies and skills. It may be hard to mentally reconcile the 10 – 20 percent average unemployment rates in developed and developing nations alike with a looming talent shortage, but that is the truth being faced by employers.

It’s not just about demographics, although demographics are a factor. Part of the challenge in preparing the next generation of workers is the speed at which the current generation of workers is reaching retirement. However, businesses need much more than simply replacement bodies.

At the heart of the issue is readiness. Businesses need talent – and especially young talent – to ready to work in a global environment. Whether the job is a supply chain manager in the middle of the European Union or a factory worker in the middle of rural China, employers need staff who are literate, nimble, and set up to compete successfully with their counterparts around the world.

How are such talents created? Almost everyone agrees that education is an important factor, and there is not a government or corporate spokesperson on the planet who does not discuss the importance of investing in education. However, on the ground, the strategies and policies around education for the next generation of workers take on a number of different forms.

Challenges to Traditional Education Methods

One of the biggest battles being fought around the world in the halls of academia has to do with methods of instruction. Historically, children went off to school each morning, sat in classrooms for eight solid hours doing memorization and repetition of the subject matter, and came home at night to regurgitate for their parents what they had learned that day. Everyone was happy. Education was working!

However, while these well-educated children could score well on tests and create excellent research papers on obscure topics, they were stumbling when they got out into the real world. Action was valued by the marketplace over regurgitation of knowledge. While core skills like reading and basic math served them well, businesses were finding that as global competition heated up, practical experience with decision making, the ability to rapidly acquire and independently assess new information, and the ability to adapt were needed to keep their businesses competitive.

In addition to putting employees through rigorous training programms, businesses are also been turning to schools and saying, “You need to do this differently.” Their management teams did not want workers who had been trained simply to obey and regurgitate a teacher’s thoughts – they needed workers who could be independent operators and innovators. Many schools resisted and stuck to their core methods, leading corporations and manufacturing conglomerates to fund thousands of charter and magnet schools worldwide.

These charter schools and magnet learning centers have not necessarily been well received by traditional educators. They cry out that if businesses have money to invest in schools, they should donate to their existing local schools, particularly in the developed world where such schools have strong reputations but strained budgets. However, many businesses hesitate to make such donations, wary of teacher’s unions, government mandated curriculums, and the inability to control what happens to their money after a donation is made.

Advantages for Developing Nations

This is an area where many developing nations have an advantage. With less established educational systems in place, they can adapt their curricula more rapidly to the needs of the global market. Also, they seem to be more open to accepting help from successful businesses and individuals, and letting those donation givers set out plainly what they want done with their money. Shakira, for example, is known internationally for her singing, but in South America she is also known for the well-respected chain of magnet schools that she has opened to revitalize the region’s educational system. Rather than being viewed as an intruder, local school systems have welcomed her and her generous investments in buildings, books, and freshly trained teachers.

Key shifts being driven by schools such as these are a focus on practical experience, interactive learning, and greater community involvement in the schools. With more experiments and interactive learning activities, students leave with the action-oriented mindset and confidence to try new tasks that employers’ desire. With more community involvement and input (versus a curriculum set by a distant ivory tower committee) students are also more grounded in the true needs of area employers, bringing greater readiness to local candidate pools.

With more local candidates trained for success in a globally connected workplace, developing nations can further leverage their cost advantages. Historically, many of these nations were deep on manual skills but short on literate managerial talent. Brought in from outside, foreign talent filled the gap, but at a high price. Now, those foreign management positions are increasingly being filled with local candidates, allowing businesses to realize the gains on their targeted educational investments, lower their talent expenditures, and be more aggressive competitors in the global marketplace moving forward.

The World is Flat

These changes to educational systems are happening in ways that are sometimes hard for developed nations’ educational leaders to process completely. Due to outsourcing, developing nations have a more “This is real” outlook toward the concept of the globe as a flat and endlessly interconnected landscape. In many developed nations, school systems are used to competing in a vacuum, insulated by government policies and teachers’ lobbyist groups from outside competition.

Now, thanks to the Internet and the wondrous speeds of modern travel, that vacuum has been invaded in irreversible ways. Systems of learning and educational tools from the far corners of the globe are only a click away on the web, making them a suddenly present threat to established systems. Institutions have the choice to either adapt and embrace these changes, or to fight them for all they’re worth.

Moaning and wailing about the sudden competition from all corners is not an acceptable strategy. Business and communities do not support stasis, as educational endowments and niche specialty groups are discovering to their horror. Venerable institutions of the past as being left behind in favor of schools and institutions of higher learning that are nimble, open to innovation, and willing to bring outsiders from whatever class background along on a journey to future success.

A Crisis of Cash, But Not Conscience

Some of the changes to educational systems around the world have slowed down in the last few years, hindered by the recent financial crisis. However, business investors and charter school developers are quick to note that these delays represent a crisis of cash and not a crisis of conscience.

Businesses need talent that is literate, nimble, and ready to compete on a global scale. World leaders want to see lower unemployment and improved opportunities for their citizens. Together, they are moving to reinvent the way that schools operate and compete, so that students entering the workforce are ready for what the world has to throw at them from day one.

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