Bradfield Oration: Retrain or a robot will steal your job
EVERY working Australian will need constant retraining to update their skills or face losing their jobs to artificial intelligence.
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EVERY Australian will have to go back to school for retraining because of automation and the relentless advance of artificial intelligence.
That’s the stark warning from NSW Education Secretary Mark Scott, who said the employment landscape was changing so rapidly the only way Aussies would be able to keep up was by lifelong learning and constant retraining to update skills.
In a blueprint for the future of education in NSW, outlined as part of The Daily Telegraph’s Project Sydney: Bradfield campaign, Mr Scott said educators had to “lift the bar much higher” to give students the skills and attributes they needed to survive in an increasingly automated world.
“We are at crossroads and we can’t sit back and wait for the revolution to happen to us — we need to lead the change. This is education’s moment,” he said. “We need to break the expectation that you leave school and leave university and have a profession for life. That simply won’t be the case. Professions will radically change and require retraining, and this may happen multiple times in a person’s career.”
Schools are already changing the way their students are taught, with less emphasis on rote learning and more attention on problem-solving, creative and critical thinking and communication skills.
At the moment many businesses are being forced to retrain their workforces without support from governments. Australia Post retrained or redeployed 10,000 workers from July 2014 to March this year.
“Years ago, large organisations maintained their scale for multiple decades and this is no longer the case. Today, organisations like ours need to think and act differently — we need to be customer-led, technology literate and embrace the creativity of our workforce to drive growth,” Australia Post group chief digital officer Andrew Walduck said.
Research from the UK estimates 47 per cent of existing jobs will be gone in 20 years — highlighting the vital importance of continual learning.
Mr Scott said while some jobs would be lost due to “AI and computing power”, others that dealt strongly with people, such as teaching, nursing and aged care, would flourish.
“It is hard to predict what the jobs there will be but we know that strong levels of numeracy and literacy will be absolutely vital for every student because it will be a career of ongoing learning,” he said.
Stemming the flow
GIRLS’ participation in science is under the microscope and education chiefs are vowing to get more of them focusing on the subject from a young age.
Education Secretary Mark Scott said he wanted to “force doors open” in primary schools in the hope many more girls will then study the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths).
And Nick Little, dad of Rosa, 6, and Evie, 9, said he was pleased they were exploring the scientific world.
“They’re excited about it,” Mr Little said yesterday.
“Their grandma was a science teacher, and she’s very keen on them learning about it.
“It’s great.”
Angelina looks to space for design inspiration
Hundreds of NSW primary school children entered The Daily Telegraph’s competition to design Sydney’s next great building but Angelina El Malouf’s observatory and space museum was out of this world.
Sydney college to rival the best
Aspiring croupiers, cocktail bartenders and even butlers will be trained to compete with the world’s best at Sydney’s newest hospitality training college when it opens in March.