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
46 MAL37 / 20 ISSUE