The education report, published at the end of June 2018, provides comprehensive data and information from numerous statistics from research and administration (divided into around 500 topics) and it also asks "about the impact of education on the individual and on society."(Source: alice.ch)
Continuing education is also a topic
The report also addresses continuing education. As many as 14 pages are devoted to it, whereby the need for continuing education is determined exclusively with regard to vocational training, the preservation and development of (professionally relevant) knowledge, and due to technological and economic upheavals. Non-vocational training is excluded. Moreover, the authors largely avoid making statements on the effectiveness and benefits of continuing education due to a lack of empirical data.
Also, continuing education was not mentioned directly during the presentation in Bern, neither in the remarks of Stefan Wolter, nor in those of Federal Councillor Schneider-Ammann or the EDK President Silvia Steiner. However, various phenomena that shape formal education can be read as a continuation, so to speak, in the chapter on "Continuing Education". For example, when it comes to different starting conditions: those of children at the beginning of their school career and those of participants in continuing education or those who do not participate in continuing education.
No compensation thanks to further training
One bitter truth right up front: continuing education does not provide a balance between people with different levels of formal education. On the contrary, people who already have a lot of formal education also benefit more often from non-formal education. As a result, the gap between poorly and well-educated individuals continues to widen, the authors write. Promoting equal opportunities in access to continuing education therefore remains a key challenge.
Not least for people who have only immigrated to Switzerland at an age when the formal education process is generally complete, further education would also offer the opportunity to compensate for educational deficits. If one wants to promote their lasting integration into the labor market, the report states, the deficits in the area of formal education must first be remedied. In many cases, however, the basis for this must first be created. If people without post-compulsory education are to be integrated into further education, basic skills must generally be taught first, the team of authors notes:
One in four foreign workers affected
It is true that the proportion of employed persons without post-compulsory qualifications has declined in Switzerland in recent decades; in the 40-64 age group it was still 10 percent in 2016, and in the 25-29 age group it was still just under 5 percent. But among the foreign workforce, every third to fourth person between the ages of 40 and 64 has no post-compulsory education.
The gap between well-qualified and low-skilled individuals deepens once again when it comes to retaining or upgrading knowledge, because better qualified individuals also learn more efficiently and can thus make more productive use of an educational investment.
What can humans do better than computers?
Whether well or low-skilled, technological change and economic change affect all workers. In the past, however, this has not been reflected in rising participation in continuing education. "Forecasts regarding digitalization are difficult," Federal Councilor Schneider-Ammann emphasized. However, it can be assumed that artificial intelligence will be able to perform numerous tasks just as well as a human in the near future. "We cannot outrun the computer," said Stefan Wolter. It is therefore necessary to consider how the curriculum should be developed so that humans can develop in a complementary way to computers, he said. The education report provides the starting point for these considerations - at least to a limited extent also for continuing education. (RS)
