From education to employment

Today’s Unified Education Links Directly to Economic Success

Badr Ward

A nation’s success in pure economic terms like productivity, its unemployment figures or its citizen’s satisfaction levels depends on aligning further education outcomes with what job markets demand. Get this wrong and the outcome is national skill shortages, economic inefficiencies, youth unemployment and in some cases generational disenfranchisement.

This seems like common sense. So why then do today’s generations of graduates, in the UK and elsewhere, emerge from education without the relevant skills to thrive in modern economies? A third of UK workers believe they are overqualified for their jobs according to a study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. How can we stop this waste of human talent?

The Cracked Foundation

Further Education professionals know well the skills gap does not begin when young graduates enter the workforce. But often those teaching in tertiary education today do not have the data they need to course correct over the two, three or four years of their course. 

Aligning ambitious national visions with educational attainment in today’s digital, increasingly AI-powered, world starts way earlier than most appreciate – with early childhood education. Research consistently shows the first five years of life are crucial for cognitive, social, and emotional development, shaping a child’s ability to learn, adapt, and solve problems.  Just when the pressures on parents to juggle busy schedules and the distraction of screens are highest, is when tomorrow’s highly productive graduates are formed. 

Ideally by the time undergraduates join further education a personalised map of attainment and a clear understanding of how best to educate each undergraduate student would be available to them. Without that, it may be too late to course correct. But it does not need to remain this way.

Aligning FE with Economic Success

Further Education’s success should be part of a holistic, long-term approach connecting FE learning with national economic priorities and the data on each student’s learning journey. A Unified Education Framework (UEF), combining efficiency, effectiveness and empowerment,  offers a solution that aligns providers of education with those who deliver it, the teachers. It works within national goals, provides personalisation for every child, and benchmarks assessments. This cuts across education funders, like Governments, Universities and other private bodies, education administrators, like chancellors and faculty such as teachers and lecturers.

A UEF provides powerful inputs for FE education professionals in several ways. For those who need to budget for and regulate education, a single overview of top-level performance is critical. For teachers this means reducing the time spent on admin such as lesson planning and marking. For administrators it means streamlining educational resources, reducing redundancy, and integrating digital learning tools, and for governments it provides much needed real-time insight on student performance, teacher effectiveness, and curriculum outcomes. 

Lastly, for students themselves a UEF approach to content and assessment ensures learning is structured, not just to move them through their educational journey, but develop the cognitive, creative, and technical skills required for future workforces from the judiciary to the skilled tradesmen still needed, albeit AI-assisted in the real world.

Unsurprisingly these days, UEF platforms from Lamsa and others rely on the responsible use of the latest innovations in automation and AI. A UEF platform responsibly helps teaching professionals analyse how pupils, young and old, are interacting with digital learning materials. This allows educators to refine content as needed to improve engagement, retention, and personal development. 

Global Success Stories to Learn From

The proof is out there. Many rapidly growing economies can align their education practices and national aspirations more easily than their western counterparts, who historically have been bound to outdated education models and best practices in the pre-digital world.

For instance, in the Middle East and Asia, many have embraced Unified Educational Frameworks to adapt and more closely align curriculum planning with future workforce needs at a national level.

In the UAE, a national strategy for artificial intelligence and digital transformation in education is guiding how it develops future-ready graduates. Singapore’s further education system continuously evolves based on economic demands, ensuring students are equipped with the exact skills required for the changing job market.

Unifying Education with National Goals

There is much to be learned from countries that are seeking to modernise their workforces, and how they rethink how education is structured – not just at the university level, but from the earliest years of a child’s life. Educating over 20 million learners so far, Lamsa has already demonstrated the power of this approach across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), where rapidly evolving economies require agile education systems.

Unlike legacy education systems, whose rigid structures entrench educational outcomes which fail to address the job market of today – let alone tomorrow – some nations are successfully bridging the gap between learning and economic success. By adopting similar approaches, we can create a more integrated, future-focused education system which meets the needs of their students and economies alike.

Governments simply cannot afford to wait until students enter higher education to bridge the skills gap.  By adopting a Unified Education Framework, nations can start to create a truly future-ready generation, equipped with the problem-solving, digital, and interpersonal skills they need for their future economic growth.

By Badr Ward, CEO of Lamsa World


Onefile May 24

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