Vocational Education 4.0: New Requirements, New Ways, New Means
Digital technologies are opening up new opportunities in vocational education and training. At its DigitalSkills conference in Bern on October 22, 2018, the Swiss Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (SFIVET) will shed light on how learners can be trained in line with the times. The new trend report and the SFIVET position paper show ways to achieve this.
They recognize faces, translate texts and learn to speak. Neural networks can already do a lot today. In the future, they will be able to do much more, Jürgen Schmidhuber is convinced. "Artificial intelligence will change everything," predicts the pioneer of machine learning, who opened the Digital Skills Conference in Bern's Kursaal on October 22 in front of around 800 participants. Google, Apple, Amazon and many other companies are already working with his systems.
At the conference of the Swiss Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training SFIVET, everything revolves around the question of how the digital transformation of vocational education and training can be shaped most effectively. "This transformation should improve our lives. Especially our working lives. And we have to make sure of that ourselves," Federal Councillor Johann N. Schneider-Ammann gave the attendees in his address. SFIVET Council President Philippe Gnaegi, initiator of the Swiss Observatory for Vocational Education and Training SFIVET, emphasized: "Already several years ago, SFIVET did pioneering work in Ticino. Now it must become a driving force for the digital transformation of our education system." SFIVET Director Cornelia Oertle is optimistic about the future: "It is precisely thanks to its anchoring in companies that vocational education and training can fully exploit the potential of digitalization and help shape the transformation."
This year's trend report by the Swiss Observatory for Vocational Education and Training (OBS EHB) points the way to this future of VET 4.0.
- Does dual vocational training have a future? Yes, vocational training has a future and is well prepared for change. However, it is important to support employees in such a way that they can continue their education and gain higher qualifications.
- Will transversal competencies be most in demand in the future? The range in which competencies can be applied is limited. They only become transversal (overlapping) when professionals know in which comparable situations they can apply their professional, social and personal competencies in a similar way. Vocational training is ideally suited for training this.
- How can educational regulations stay current? The Trend Report argues for a more flexible vocational training system to better accommodate rapid technological change and, in particular, sees more open education curricula as a possible means of doing so.
- How can digital technologies be used in the classroom? Anyone who wants to use them efficiently needs not only know-how and the necessary infrastructure, but also the appropriate didactic knowledge. Experience shows that the learning process is only meaningfully supported by new technological means if it is embedded in good didactic concepts.
- Do teachers need to change their roles? Increasingly, learners know new technologies more quickly and accurately than teachers. This challenges teachers in their role as subject matter experts. At the same time, they need good didactic concepts for these learning situations.
These findings ultimately culminate in SFIVET's position paper on the impact of digitization on vocational education and training. Central to this are the demands to continue to place people at the center and to deal consciously with the new technologies.
More information: https://www.ehb.swiss/digitalskills
