"Technology and ideology are shaking the foundations of twenty-first century capitalism. Technology is making skills and knowledge the only sources of sustainable strategic advantage. Abetted by the electronic media, ideology is moving toward a radical form of short-run consumption maximization at precisely a time when economic success will depend upon the willingness and ability to make long-run social investments in skills, education, knowledge, and infrastructure."1
The relationship between working and learning has changed from one epoch to another. Until recently a response such as "I'm not working - I'm studying" would be readily understood and accepted in much of the industrialized world. It was not always thus. Nor will the distinction hold up in the evolving knowledge-based economy of the 21st century.
Prior to the creation of formal educational institutions - universities for the clerical and mercantile elites of the later middle ages - working and learning were an integral part of the daily lives of many people. The development of the guild system and its associated apprenticeship model was an expression of the fusion of working and learning. Indeed, the root of the term apprenticeship comes from the French verb apprendre - "to learn." The apprenticeship model at its best was a melding of working and learning - with a legal and moral commitment on the part of employers and workers to engage in a mutual process with the objective that apprentices would become masters of both working and learning in their craft.
Alan Thomas, in Beyond Education: A new Perspective on Society's Management of Learning, traces the historic struggle between the elites, who would control or manage learning, and those who would amplify and liberate it, and themselves.2 Thomas also argues that learning is an ubiquitous individual activity and social process which goes far beyond both "education" and "training" - the twins of the old pre-Copernican paradigm in which teaching and teachers were the centre of the universe. "Education and training float upon a sea of learning," Thomas asserts. Learners and learning are the centre of the new paradigm. Learning encompasses and is the basis of both training and education.
In the old paradigm, the arbitrary distinction and false dichotomy between education and training supported the notion of their unequal value; that learning for and in the workplace was somehow less worthy than that which may occur in the academy. In the new paradigm, education and training have parity of esteem. Both are found within the formal, more systematic part of the seamless web of learning. Both share a common foundation of key skills for the 21st century - basic literacy (communication and computer) and numeracy, teamwork and interpersonal skills, critical thinking and problem-solving, and the fundamental ability to learn how to learn. The boundaries of both are increasingly merged not only with one another but also with the less systematic, but often more relevant and effective learning of a non-formal or informal nature which is a daily occurrence in the homes, workplaces and communities of our nation. Learning and its outcomes, regardless of how they are achieved, are the treasure of the knowledge age.
"In the knowledge age, the acquisition and development of intelligence, the new form of property, is an essential investment. It is also hard work."3
In the current era of rapid social and economic transformation, whole economies, industries, and the workplace are being restructured. New definitions of work and learning are imperative. Peter Drucker, who as early as 1959 coined the term "knowledge worker," sees the management of knowledge within organizations as the major future challenge of the post-capitalist society.4
Charles Handy, in The Empty Raincoat: Making Sense of the Future, defines four kinds of work. The first is paid work; the second is gift or voluntary work; the third is home work or home and family maintenance; and the last is study work which, according to Handy, is an essential investment in a knowledge-based economy.
Handy considers some of the policy implications of recognizing voluntary and study work officially as work. For example, he cites the absurdity of government policies which have penalized the unemployed, who are considered "not ready for work" if they are studying! Trust the Swedes, who call their student financial support a "student wage" and who provide financial assistance to new parents to stay home to bond and learn with their infants, to pioneer needed social inventions which recognize that studying, learning, and nurturing are forms of work.5
Jeremy Rifkin sees the voluntary sector providing meaningful work which the public sector cannot and the private sector will not.6 He challenges educators to provide meaningful "service-learning" (working and learning in the voluntary sector) opportunities as a positive response to the emerging socio-economic crisis. He applauds the almost 70 per cent of American community colleges which provide service-learning opportunities which are found across the curriculum.7
Leading nations around the world are responding to the challenge of working and learning in an emerging knowledge-based economy. Increasingly they have been influenced by the mounting body of research by the Organization for Economic Development and Co-operation and UNESCO into the conceptualization and implementation of lifelong learning as an organizing principle and social goal.8 They understand that education and training - learning in the emerging knowledge-based economy - is not merely an expenditure but rather an investment with significant individual, social and economic benefits.
There appears to be a confluence of thought which supports a fundamental rethinking of the relationship of working and learning in a knowledge- based economy. Economists like Stanford's Paul Romer have provided new perspectives on the crucial role of learning in a knowledge-based economy.9 He argues that it is ideas - the whole process of discovery - that causes economic growth. He asserts that while the physical world is characterised by scarcity and diminishing returns, the world of ideas and the process of discovery in a knowledge economy suffers from neither.
At the same time a small but growing group of business leaders are operationalizing the notion of "intellectual capital." This is the concept that in a knowledge-based economy the intangible assets of a company are at least as valuable, if not more, than the tangible assets. Companies like Sweden's Skandia Insurance have pioneered the notion as they apply it to their world-wide operations. Skandia defines intellectual capital in a number of ways, including the difference between the company's market value and its book value. It is engaged in pioneering work of developing and implementing a systematic way of visualizing and measuring its intellectual capital. Others have identified the components of intellectual or knowledge capital as including intangible assets such as:
Several years ago Philips Electronics in Holland acquired a substantial loan from a hard-nosed Dutch bank on the basis of the intellectual capital of Philip's employees - including such features as their credentials, demonstrated skills and innovative track record. The prestigious US Securities and Exchange Commission has given serious consideration to requiring an intellectual capital supplement to companies' annual reports.
Are these merely steps to commodify learning, like so many other aspects of our acquisitive society? Or are they serious efforts to recognize and celebrate the unique human contribution of learning and working in a knowledge-based economy of the 21st century? Certainly the work of Romer, and the growing interest in recognizing intellectual capital are providing a rationale for a new public policy for, and a private sector commitment to, education and training, and working and learning. At the same time a mounting body of research evidence substantiates significant individual, corporate and social return on educational investment.11 The synthesis of these trends may provide a coherent and powerful argument for increased public and private sector support for imaginative policies and good practice in the field of working and learning.
"In a competitive economy and inclusive society, every employer must be an investor and every worker a learner."12
During a recent study-visit to the United Kingdom, a colleague and I witnessed what may prove to be the early stage of a major social revolution.13 Prime Minister Tony Blair has stated that education is his government's first priority. Action taken in the first year of their mandate support his claim. A national lifelong learning strategy is central to their initiatives whether it be their child care strategy (funded out of the economic not the social envelope!) or their concerted efforts to promote increased opportunities for working and learning.
Two examples of substantial pilot projects illustrate the innovativeness of their approach. First, a regional pilot project to test the implementation and effectiveness of individual learning accounts is underway. If successful, this scheme will lead to eventual creation of a National Learning Bank which is under active consideration by government. Second, a University for Industry (Ufi) has been launched. Based at the University of Sunderland, and involving almost 30 other supporting organizations, the Ufi will be a national electronic learning network targeted chiefly at small and medium business.
The British government has just released its Green Paper on lifelong learning, "The Learning Age: A Renaissance for a New Britain." The paper provides a comprehensive vision of learning throughout the life-span which will include learning and working at home, in the workplace and the community.14
"All civilized societies strive for a common good, including not only material but intellectual and moral elements. If the Federal Government is to renounce its right to associate itself with other social groups, public and private, in the general education of Canadian citizens, it denies its intellectual and moral purpose, the complete conception of the common good is lost, and Canada as such becomes a materialistic society."15
Welcome back to Canada, the only major OECD nation without national education goals, objectives or targets.16 It is the only major nation with a federal system of government which does not have a federal department of education or equivalent such as a national Learning Council. It is a nation where not only education and training responsibilities have devolved to but also tens of billions of dollars of funding expenditure have been off-loaded onto the provinces in the past few years.17
The federal government's lack of commitment to education and training is echoed in the private sector. The 1996 World Competitiveness Report ranked Canada 37th out of 49 nations in terms of in-company training (down from 31st of 41 nations in 1994).18 The pattern is clear. Michael Porter stated in his report to the federal government and the Business Council on National Issues in 1990 that "investments by Canadian firms in worker training fall well short of levels registered in the United States, Germany, Japan, and many other advanced countries."19 The most recent analysis of worker training in British Columbia indicates that employer-sponsored training has decreased from 26.1 per cent in 1991 to 24.7 per cent in 1993 while non-employer-supported training increased from 21.9 per cent in 1991 to 25.1 per cent in 1993.20
Michael Porter, in his assessment of practice in leading nations, identified the following seven characteristics of sound educational policy:
Subsequent studies by Porter of the process and content and reform of education/training systems in five nations with a common British training heritage have shown that, as each country seeks to create a world-class workforce for the knowledge-based economy of the 21st century, there are a cluster of common features:22
• A long-term commitment (both political will and resources) of government to create a world-class workforce by:
~ devolution of responsibility to the social partners (unions and management) for industry-based standard setting and assessment, and
~ decentralization of institutional management, with accountability and quality assurance systems, to the education and training system partners.
• Flexibility enabled by the building blocks of outcomes-based, modularized curriculum delivered in various ways.
• Recognition and equal valuing of learning regardless of how it was acquired as well as means of assessment of prior learning.
• Increased use of continuing education and open learning resources.
• Increased attention to customized, just-in-time training to meet specific needs.
• Increased access for equity group members.
• An emphasis on more and better school-to-work pathways.
• Relating learning to the world of work and life.
• Building a strong base of general education and learning outcomes for participants in restructured workplaces and economies.
• A focus on reform informed by research and best practice, locally and internationally.
• Emphasis on assuring quality inputs, processes and outcomes which meet client (learner, employer, union, funding agency) needs.
• The infusion of enabling technologies into the education and training systems to ensure world class learning and support systems, and international articulation.
With the growing interest in developing more coherent, lifelong learning opportunities for all, leading nations are creating a new vision of learning and working in the 21st century and are taking the steps necessary to achieve it.
Canada has a proud tradition of adult educationists who have promoted and celebrated working and learning. For example, the Antigonish Movement of Nova Scotia arose as a response of the people of that region to the dire socio-economic conditions of the depression. Through the use of adult education study circles and radio listening groups, the farmers and fishermen and women built co-operatives and credit unions as a means of mastering their destiny. In 1939, Dr. Moses Coady of St. Francis Xavier University expressed the Movement's goals and a philosophy of working and learning and living thus:
"We have no desire to create a nation of shopkeepers, whose only thoughts run to groceries and to dividends. We want our people to look into the sun, and into the depths of the sea. We want them to explore the hearts of flowers and the hearts of their fellow men. We want them to live, to play and play with all their being. We want them to be men, whole men, eager to explore all the avenues of life and to attain perfection in all their faculties. Life for them shall not be in terms of merchandising but in terms of all that is good and beautiful, be it economic, political, social, cultural or spiritual. They are the heirs of all the ages and all the riches yet concealed. All the findings of science and philosophy are theirs. All the creations of art and literature are for them. If they are wise they will create the instruments to obtain them. They will usher in the new day by attending to the blessings of the old. They will use what they have to secure what they have not."23
We in British Columbia can build on not only our own traditions but also the substantial infrastructure which has developed over the past thirty years. Our province has become a leader in many fields of formal and non-formal education and training in the nineties. From being tied with Newfoundland in the late 80s for last place in post-secondary educational participation, BC is now among the leaders. The Centre for Curriculum, Transfer & Technology, working closely with post-secondary partners, has ensured that British Columbia is a leader in development of both learning outcomes-based approaches and assessment of prior learning. The Ministry's strategic plan, Charting a New Course, has provided an important consensus about future directions. There is a firm foundation upon which to build so that the working force of British Columbia will be the learning force of Canada's "Learning Province."
1 Thurow, Lester The Future of Capitalism: How Today's Economic Forces Shape Tomorrow's World, William Morrow and Company, New York, NY, 1996.
2 Thomas Alan M. Beyond Education: A New Perspective on Society's Management of Learning, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 1991.
3 Handy, Charles The Empty Raincoat: Making Sense of the Future, Arrow Books, UK, 1995.
4 Drucker, P. F. Post-capitalist Society, Harper Business, New York, NY, 1993. See also "The Age of Social Transformation," Atlantic Monthly, 274: 53-6,59,62,64,66-8,71-2,74-8,80.
5 During the current debate on post-secondary fees and student debt, a relevant episode half a century ago is largely forgotten. The provision of free university education for veterans in Canada and the US following the Second World War is almost universally acknowledged as the genesis of each nation's middle class. President Bill Clinton, during his 1998 State of the Union Address, proposed a Workers G.I. Bill whereby unemployed or under-employed workers would receive a training voucher equivalent to US$2,600 for community college tuition or other training.
6 Rifkin, Jeremy The End of Work: the Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era, Tarcher/Putnam Books, New York NY, 1996.
7 Rifkin, Jeremy "Preparing the Next Generation for the Civil Society," Community College Journal, 66: 20-22, 1996.
8 OECD, Lifelong Learning for All (Meeting of the Education Committee at Ministerial Level, 16-17 January 1996), OECD, Paris, 1996. UNESCO, Learning: The Treasure Within (Delors Commission), UNESCO, Paris,1996.
9 An illuminating interview with Romer is found at: http://www.ctt.bc.ca/lq/spring98/www.strategy-business.com/thought/leaders/97110/
10 Assessing and measuring intellectual capital is becoming a business. See the following website for one such enterprise in the UK: http://www.ctt.bc.ca/lq/spring98/www.tbroker.co.uk/intellectual_capital/components.htm
11 An historic perspective on the major contribution of education to Canada's economic growth is found in the last report of the now defunct Economic Council of Canada. See Education and Training in Canada, Canada Communication Group, Ottawa, 1992. For an equally compelling American case see: Carnavale, Anthony "Human Capital: A High-yield Investment," in Developing Resourceful Humans: Adult Education Within the Economic Context, (Lynn E. Burton, ed.), Routledge, New York, 1992. The landmark 1995 report, The Other Shoe: Education's Contribution to the Productivity of Establishments, of the National Center on the Educational Quality of the Workforce, University of Pennsylvania, found that increases in the worker's education levels produce twice the gain in workplace productivity as comparable increases in the value of tools and machinery. For a survey of studies assessing monetary and non-monetary returns to education and lifelong learning see Chapter 8, "How to pay for lifelong learning for all?" in Lifelong Learning for All, OECD, Paris, 1996.
12 National Council for Vocational Qualifications, "Unions on the Learning Curve," The Monitor, NCVQ, Issue 4 Summer, 1997.
13 Dunbar, Keith and Faris, Ron "Towards a Learning Nation: A View of Reform of UK Education and Training," Centre for Curriculum, Transfer & Technology, Victoria, 1997.
14 The Government Green Paper as well as its response to both the Dearing Report and the Kennedy Report are found at the website dedicated to lifelong learning consultation: http://www.ctt.bc.ca/lq/spring98/www.lifelonglearning.co.uk/greenpaper/index.htm
15 Canada, Royal Commission on the National Development in the Arts, Letters, and Sciences, Kings Printer, Ottawa, 1951.
16 The following reports provide information and analysis on the development of national goals, objectives, and targets in selected nations, chiefly those with a shared British education/training tradition:
• Canada, "An International Perspective on Human Resources Development," Secretary of State, Ottawa, 1990.
• Faris, Ron "Major Reforms in Training Systems in Five Countries: A Review of Reforms in Scotland, England and Wales, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States", Ministry of Skills, Training and Labour, Victoria, 1994.
See the website: http://www.aett.gov.bc.ca/educ-systems/5nations/5toc.htm
"Major Reforms in Training Systems in Three Countries: An Update of Selected Reforms from 1994-95 in Australia, New Zealand, and the United States," Ministry of Skills, Training and Labour, Victoria, 1995.
See the website: http://www.aett.gov.bc.ca/educ-systems/3nations.htm
"Major Reforms in Training Systems in Five Countries: A Revisit to Selected Reforms in Scotland, England and Wales, Australia, New Zealand and the United States," Centre for Curriculum, Transfer & Technology, Victoria, 1996.
17 One estimate of the initial impact of reduced federal transfer payments for education and health is found in Barlow, Maude and Campbell, Bruce Straight Through the Heart: How the Liberals Abandoned the Just Society, Harper Collins, Toronto, 1995.They calculated that the 1996 reduction of $73 million in Newfoundland was equivalent to 85 per cent of the operating grants for school boards; PEI lost $17 million which amounts to almost half of the total spending on post-secondary education; Ontario lost $1.4 billion, which amounted to three-quarters of the budget for the universities; BC lost $471 million or four times the cost of ambulance services. British Columbia, unlike all other provinces, has attempted to maintain grants to the education sector as well as freeze post-secondary tuition fees. Even the wealthier provinces such as Ontario and Alberta instituted major cuts to their post-secondary sectors (in the range of 20 per cent) while increasing student fees (Ontario's fees have almost doubled) over the past three years.
18 See Conference Board of Canada, "Performance and Potential: 1997," Members Briefing, Ottawa, 1997 for a discussion of this chronic situation.
19 Porter, Michael "Canada at the Crossroads: the Reality of a New Competitive Environment," BCNI and the Government of Canada, Ottawa, 1991.
20 Rubenson, Kjell and Xu, G. "Adult Education and Training in British Columbia: An Analysis of the 1994 Adult Education and Training Survey," Centre for Policy Studies in Education, UBC, 1997.
21 Porter, Michael The Competitive Advantage of Nations, The Free Press, New York, 1990.
22 Faris, Ron "Major Reforms in Training Systems in Five Countries", 1994.
23 Coady, Moses Masters of Their Own Destiny, Harpers, New York, 1939.