David Price OBE discusses The Power of US – The future of education and work in a post-Covid World

@DavidPriceOBE launches new book “The Power of Us: How we connect, act and innovate together” 

This book launch has an interesting time being during the Corona Crisis, Gavin @FENews took the opportunity to chat with David about what the education system, the future of work and what we can learn from the current world situation:

Exploring how the education system needs to change and take inspiration from the 17-yr old high school dropout who created the world’s most used Covid tracking app, but was seen to be a failure in his education system, to how the World of work is evolving.

Many of the huge global challenges are being solved by a community of experts coming together to solve massive global problems, what can leadership learn from Hugelkultur, the ancient German and Eastern European horticultural technique, to build the foundations for a legacy of continual innovation and new ideas?

David Price OBE, is an expert in organisational learning for a complex future. He writes, talks, trains and advises, around the world, on some of the biggest challenges facing business, education and society: solving the problems of employee, student and civic disengagement; maximising our potential to be creative, innovative and fulfilled citizens, and understanding the global shift towards open organisations, and systems of learning

Through researching his new book, David explains that with the future of work, we are witnessing the emergence of ordinary people working together to solve big problems in all aspects of our society, rooted in a communal desire to make the world a better place in which to live.

In the FE News interview with David, we borrow Tom Friedman’s term from the New York Times of BC, DC and AC as a reference point to the current World situation for Further Education and the Future of work. BC being before Covid-19, DC being During the Corona crisis (eg now) and what the future could be AC, or after the Corona crisis has passed.

Is the current assessment system fit for purpose?

Fresh in everyone’s memory will be the A-Level, GCSE and Vocational results from 2020. David chats about the current education system, about the English Exam results algorithm, with so much hope about the future around AI, what can we learn and how can we avoid unconscious bias in education.

David goes onto highlight that employers are now more focussed on employees ability to get the job done, than their qualifications. David references a recent HEPI blog and report written by the Insitute of Student Employers, from last year the proportion of employers requiring no minimum qualifications had more than doubled during the same four year period.

David references 17 year-old student, Avi Schiffmann, who recently won the much-coveted ‘Webby Person Of The Year’ award for best website, for his Covid-tracker site. The site constantly updates in real-time and was considered so reliable that it became the epidemiologist’s go-to reference point when identifying spikes or patterns around the world. Ironically at school, Avi’s grades slipped due to the time focussed on develop this and other award winning websites.

Looking at his grades alone, he would be seen as a failure in the education system. We ask, what can we learn from this? As surely Avi has the type of skills, dedication and focus that employers and entrepreneurs are seeking, but the education system that Avi is a part of does not recognise these skills.

We then go onto chat about the future of work and productivity. David even discusses Hugelkultur, the ancient German and Easter European horticulture technique, and how this can be a leadership technique of laying the foundations to develop a culture of continual innovation and thriving with new ideas.