Learned helplessness is difficult to
recognize in ourselves, though it can
be easier to see in others. Many of us,
especially digital natives who have grown
up with digital technology, are comfortable
around digital tools and believe that we
are skilled at using them. Our familiarity
breeds confidence, and we assume that
we have a sophisticated relationship with
technology.
Familiarity, however, does not guarantee
competence. Often, our understanding of
technology is not as good as we assume.
When pressed, we cannot explain how our
digital tools work, why we use them the
way we do, or if there is a better way of
using them. Interestingly, it is the digital
natives who are most notorious in this
respect. Studies have shown that digital
natives neither use technology more often
nor are they more proficient at using it
than digital immigrants. Indeed, many
digital natives are prone to overestimating
their digital skills: In one study, twice as
many digital natives rated themselves
“digitally proficient” as actually were
digitally proficient.
The point is that mere familiarity with
digital technology does not inoculate
people against learned helplessness.
Whether digital native or digital
immigrant, experienced worker or
graduate - most people are prone to the
phenomenon.
I advance the view that we can no longer
expect to sit on our current skill-set and
progress. On the contrary, skills need to
be updated on an on-going basis, and a
culture of ongoing learning needs to be
developed by organizations and adopted
by individuals. In 1880 - accountants and
mathematicians were the “data scientists”
of note, manipulating calculations
Mere familiarity
with digital technology
does not inoculate
people against
learned helplessness.
Whether digital native
or digital immigrant,
experienced
worker or graduate -
most people are prone
to the phenomenon.
Skills are the vectors by which transformations
of industries and economies
take place. As jobs come to be redefined
by new modes of work, the result is a hybridization
that mashes together skills
from disparate domains, and demands
greater breadth and flexibility of the
workforce.
understood by a select few. Today, many
workers across multiple professions
perform calculations far more complex,
and millions of people understand
and manipulate data using tools and
techniques that would confound even the
most skillful of 19th century experts. Yet
most people consider the modern data
scientist to have a rarefied set of skills,
unlikely to be learned in the future, by the
rest of the population.
The advanced skills of the past become the
foundational skills of the future. John Snow
solved a mystery and ended a London
cholera outbreak in 1854, inventing
epidemiological tools that middle and
high school students now use routinely in
environmental fieldwork. Procedures that
only doctors did in the 1920s and 1930s
are now handled by millions of nursing
aides, family members, and patients. Few
people now over fifty had exposure to
computers in their youth, yet many have
since mastered sophisticated digital tools.
At some moment in the future, many
of the high level of skills that currently
seem confined to the upper reaches of
the digital economy, or to larger, more
complex organizations, will become
the norm among jobseekers, incumbent
employees, and workplaces. This dynamic
movement of skills, through time and
across contexts, is an essential part of the
story of the New Foundational Skills.
Though highly concentrated in the digital
economy, they are spreading… fast.
The world of work is
changing
A broad range of occupations are at risk
for transition or elimination through
digital migration, and more so with the
prevailing Covid-19 crisis. Automation
and artificial intelligence are on the rise
and set to replace a large chunk of the
workforce in the current decade. Many
economies and industries that are losing
occupations to automation are already
re-purposing existing occupations, and
creating new jobs. In fact, the pace of
this transformation of work is gaining
momentum. In a recent global study,
McKinsey & Company found that for
most jobs, more than a third of the skills
necessary in 2016 would no longer even be
required for the same job by 2020 - a mere
four years later.
Skills are the vectors by which
transformations of industries and
economies take place. As jobs come to
be redefined by new modes of work, the
result is a hybridization that mashes
together skills from disparate domains,
and demands greater breadth and
flexibility of the workforce. In the global
economy, Kenya included, digitally
intensive jobs are mushrooming, and
they are increasingly influencing work
done outside of traditionally technical
industries and sectors. Not only is the
economy predicated on the workforce’s
acquisition of new skills, but also there is
explosive demand across multiple sectors
for people who can synthesize multiple
skills that include a digital or technical
element.
Fortunately, there is a growing body of
evidence that skills, and their acquisition,
can drive mobility, even for those most at
risk of losing jobs or of having their jobs
change. Modern jobs integrate an array
of broadly demanded skills. These are
not the specialized skills of the engineer
or the physicist, working with advanced
mathematical models, so much as they are
those of the analyzer of complex bodies of
data, the software programmer, the project
manager, and the critical thinker.
A core benefit of foundational skills is the
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