Schooling for the future: Ken Boal, vice president, Cisco Australia and New Zealand
When recruiting, Cisco looks for the capabilities essential to survival in a very competitive industry, says its local CEO
Australian educators are asking big questions about how schools need to adapt to educate the next generation. The Association of Independent Schools of New South Wales has commissioned a report titled “CEO Perspectives: The Future of Schooling in Australia”. Produced in partnership with Knowledge Society, the project involves interviews with leaders about their priorities and ideas for change. The Deal presents some edited extracts.
Ken Boal, vice president, Cisco Australia and New Zealand
What kinds of skills, capabilities and character traits do you look for in employees?
At Cisco the skills and capabilities we’re looking for can be quite broad. We find we often develop the skills and capabilities for some of the specific technology requirements we have, but that does need to be laid on a strong foundation, so STEM is absolutely critical to that but it’s not purely STEM. With the graduates we’re bringing in, we look for previously so-called 21st-century skills, or enterprise skills. This is a big part of our recruitment phase. We look for problem-solving, collaboration, creativity, a lot around teamwork and collaboration skills – just working together.
Empathy for others’ point of view is really important. We look for adaptability in our teams and our staff. We’ve got a very fast-changing industry – technology – and it’s changing many other industries as well. That curiosity, that willingness to learn, to roll up your sleeves and develop a real passion for what we do, the impact that we can have to make a better society, is absolutely fundamental.
Our top performers are quite resilient, because when you’re in a competitive industry it’s not always going to be a success. We look for leadership qualities at every level, even in our early-in careers [those who come straight from university] – leadership potential, the ability to step up and be strategic, to understand the bigger picture, but also then to be able to be action oriented, to have an execution focus.
At the top end of the young people we see, the high performers are terrific; they are better than ever. I’d say the average, though, is either the same, if not struggling to really understand what employers are looking for. It might be [they have] very strong disciplinary skills or foundational knowledge, but not the strengths and the capacity around the enterprise skills, the soft skills per se. That’s something that’s harder for us to assess in an interview, but that’s an area we would like to see lifted on an ongoing basis.
- The Future of Work
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17 jobs across 5 industries
Young people will need to work up to 17 jobs across 5 industries to earn a living
The facts and stats
- The Future of Work
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70 per cent
70 per cent of 15-24-year-olds currently enter the workforce through jobs that are unlikely to exist in the next 10-15 years due to automation
The facts and stats
- The Future of Work
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The number one driver of economic growth is cognitive development, not years of school or education completed
The facts and stats
- The Future of Work
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500-700
Estimate of the number of new schools Australia will need to build in the next 10 years
The facts and stats
- The Future of Work
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60 per cent
Percentage of people entering university using means other than Australian Tertiary Admission Rank
The facts and stats
How important is a learning mindset at Cisco?
Knowledge is not static, knowledge is dynamic, and the creation and curation of that knowledge and then the learning culture within the firm to embrace that and to democratise that knowledge is really important. So both the commitment to a learning culture and commitment to furthering the knowledge base are very important for technology firms, and I think it should be for every employer. I think schools are creating that mindset – helping to create the curiosity and the passion for learning on the whole.
Which different employment pathways are you seeing from schools to your organisation?
Mostly we employ through university graduate programs, but not exclusively. We’ve seen tremendous success in taking students out of the vocational education training sector. We have an industry learning program with TAFEs around the nation. It’s very strong and that’s a good pathway into degree-based programs. Rather than taking the big step straight into university, students can take a step into TAFE. They can then either get into employment – and the statistics in technology are quite encouraging, including in new fields such as cybersecurity where new TAFE diploma-level programs have been launched – but also they can use that as a springboard into a degree and then into employment, or even then further studies and research.
What do you think the school of the future might look like?
I don’t have a crystal ball and I’m not a pedagogy expert, but I think what we learn, what will be taught, will be constantly evolving. I think there’ll be more focus on technology. Technology itself will be a subject, but also delivered – helping to deliver all of the disciplinary knowledge that’s necessary. Technology will be used to help monitor and derive or understand student engagement and performance, and assess – in real time, not just at a point in time – throughout the schooling term. So I think that’s going to be really exciting.
I think schools themselves will break down – they won’t be as rigid. There’ll be a lot more collaboration with other forms of education, whether it’s vocational education or higher education, but also industry, and probably and potentially also government. There’ll be access to all manner of really wonderful resources, both virtual and physical. I would hope that it’s about both individual work and a lot more about teamwork. Technology will play a role but there’ll also be times where it’s disconnected. It’s not about technology, it’s about good old face-to-face engagement and real human-centred connectedness that we also need.
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One third
of their time learning on the job (up 30%)
By 2030 workers will spend...
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12 hours
per week on problem solving (up 90%)
By 2030 workers will spend...
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15 hours
per week on critical thinking (up 40%)
By 2030 workers will spend...
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7 hours
per week on verbal communication (up 17%)
By 2030 workers will spend...
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7 hours
per week on interpersonal skills (listening, empathy etc) (up 17%)
By 2030 workers will spend...
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3 hours more
per week making decisions autonomously
By 2030 workers will spend...
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1 hour less
per week receiving instructions
By 2030 workers will spend...
What social changes will define Australia in the future and what role can schools play in preparing students for that?
I think there’s the demographic change, the generational change, and of course the cultural diversity we have here in Australia. They’re wonderful opportunities but they also are challenges. We also have this economic diversity, and with the onset [of] the changes to work, the threats and the opportunity around the jobs of the future and automation which also has the potential to create more social change. It’s important that we take the entire population of all Australians with us.
Understanding the awareness, the empathy, the support for the demographic changes, the generational, the cultural changes, but also the changes to our economy and the nature of jobs and the nature of work – this is where education provides a lot more than just foundational literacy and numeracy. Citizenship, globalisation, self-awareness, our role in the world, ethics – all of these things are fundamental to an education today.
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Fact sources: How Young People Are Faring Report Card, FYA, 2015; New Work Order, FYA, 2015; Hanushek et al, Education and economic growth, 2008; Knowledge Society; Pilcher and Tori, Crunching the numbers, Mitchell Institute, 2018; New Work Smarts, FYA, 2017.
