We focus on skills that are currently, or soon to be, in high demand, with an emphasis on enhancing employability and providing opportunities to sample areas that may be of interest for future study.

While undergraduate and postgraduate degrees will always be important qualifications, the emergence of micro-credentials has implications for formal degree qualifications.

Participants increasingly expect to count micro-credentials for credit towards a degree or as a means of demonstrating their preparedness for formal degree study. And we know employers are looking for micro-credentials to be codified so they can be recognised and bundled with those from other education providers.

Frameworks for doing this are being developed. The Australian Technology Network (a grouping of Australia’s top technology universities including UTS) is working with the Australian Government and industry to help ensure micro-credentials form a structured part of Australia’s education system. The ATN is also delivering Designing Your Future, a new series of micro-credentials to help people deal with workplace change and achieve their career goals. Designing Your Future is offered across all six universities and can be credited towards further study.

Similarly, the NSW Government is funding the New Education and Training Model, an industry-led, micro-credential offering linked to the Western Parkland City. This precinct approach will deliver micro-credentials to thousands of people based in Western Sydney, supporting the new industries which will drive NSW’s economic growth.

Business and industry are also recognising the advantages of lifetime learning — in employee retention, satisfaction, and professional development.

UTS is well-known for the strong employer connections that underpin our degrees. We have taken the same approach with our micro-credentials, which are often co-designed and sometimes co-delivered, with our industry partners. UTS’s partnership with Telstra is a great example of this collaborative approach.

Telstra and UTS have been working together since late 2019 to design and deliver learning to thousands of Telstra employees globally. This learning upskills workers in Data Analytics, Data Engineering and Artificial Intelligence to meet the demands of Telstra’s evolving digital and technology services business.

Telstra recognised that to truly build specialist skills in Data and AI, they needed to partner with a university to ensure strong foundational knowledge and best-practice specialisations in the relevant fields as well as the academic rigour delivered by university-level learning. Telstra wanted vendor-agnostic content, high-quality and industry-leading learning that would provide a measurable uplift in skill competency and practice.

With academic experts from UTS working with Telstra’s subject-matter experts, UTS has designed and delivered six micro-credential courses to over 1100 Telstra staff around the world.

Like most innovations in our digital age, micro-credentials will evolve and change to suit individual and employer needs, and the best universities will lead this evolution. For now, they add an important new contribution to Australia’s education landscape and are worth exploring — no matter what stage of life or career you’re in.

Professor Andrew Parfitt is Vice-Chancellor and President, University of Technology Sydney.