Engineers Australia chief engineer Jane MacMaster FIEAust CPEng said engineers must ensure their knowledge and skills remain relevant to a very dynamic industry. “Engineers need to keep developing and retaining that ability to learn.” “Communication, stakeholder engagement, risk management and ethical practice are all key areas that need to be maintained.”
https://www.manmonthly.com.au/features/five-ways-stay-relevant-engineering-career/
Gov. Ned Lamont announced the creation of seven new technology education programs at Connecticut's public and private colleges and universities on Friday. Lamont said these programs will help give students the skills they need to be successful in the tech sector. "Bringing our educators to the same table as our businesses has been a priority of our administration since day one," Lamont said in a press release. "Having businesses articulate what types of skills they need and working with Connecticut's best educational institutions to create new programs that put people in high-quality careers is how we are building a nation-leading workforce."
The University of Michigan-Flint's College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) is offering a pathway for students to complete a portion of their general education program through an innovative 12-16 credit hour Certificate in Humanistic Inquiry in the Liberal Arts & Sciences (CHILAS) that debuts in fall 2022. With an $85,000 grant provided by the Teagle Foundation for planning and implementation, Jennifer Alvey, associate professor of anthropology and co-primary investigators (PIs) DJ Trela, professor of English, and Stephanie Roach, associate professor of English, led the development of the program to give UM-Flint students opportunities for "humanistic inquiry" also known as skill sets that are vital to student success on campus and beyond in today's competitive job market.
With the merger of six of its schools in effect, Pennsylvania’s state university system is looking ahead to the next phase of its redesign, including how to lure adults to enroll who have some college but no degree. Daniel Greenstein, chancellor of the system, said there are about a million such adults in Pennsylvania. They are just one group of untapped potential students that could help the system stem enrollment losses and meet workforce needs, he said. He said the system also will pursue high school graduates who have the grade point averages and ability for college, but who for whatever reason are not pursuing a degree, as well as workers who would prefer other kinds of training or certificate programs in areas such as business, health care and technology.
These certificate programs enhance degrees in psychology or business by providing additional specialized, career-focused knowledge. Students can now earn a certificate in animal assisted therapy from Husson University Online. This certificate program can teach students how to facilitate effective human–animal interactions - a beneficial skill set that can enhance the health of patients with anxiety and the careers of mental health professionals everywhere.”
In 2020, more than 2000 educators earned more than 4000 micro-credentials. BloomBoard and Digital Promise host over 500 active microcredentials each, and the National Education Association (NEA) offers nearly 200. Educator micro-credentials are, according to New America, “a verification of a discrete skill or competency that a teacher has demonstrated through the submission of evidence assessed via a validated rubric.”
We take a look at how South Carolina’s Denmark Technical College partnered with YouScience to provide their students with industry-recognized certification and skills toward career success. According to the UN, education and training are paramount to the achievement of the 2030 agenda and the Sustainable Development goals. The observance of World Youth Skills Day also serves as a stepping stone to opening up a dialogue between students, technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions, organizations, policy-makers, and development partners.
However, our research shows the gap between salaries offered to people with and without degrees is in many cases marginal, and there are a surprising number of roles where those without degrees can actually earn just as much (or even more) than those with bachelor's degrees. The table below shows the average salary available for candidates in 20 high-paying roles with varying levels of education, ranked from highest to lowest in terms of average salary across all degree levels.
https://remote.com/blog/degree-vs-experience-how-important-are-degrees
“It’s exciting to see the depth and breadth of the new programs that AllCampus continues to add to its roster,” said Joe Diamond, CEO of AllCampus. “With the current skills gap in the U.S. impacting nearly every industry, business and employee, certificate and upskilling programs are an accessible and effective way to develop and hone new skills. I’m looking forward to seeing all of the employees and employers we’ll be able to help by introducing these new programs with our impressive university partners.”
I haven’t written much about alternative credentials, partly because I’ve been waiting for patterns to become more evident to me. Oddly, my recent post about Web3 in education catalyzed my thinking about the credentials topic. In both cases, proponents want to decentralize power structures by using technology to make centralization less necessary. But while decentralization can be facilitated by technology up to a point, it is also limited by the nature of humans as social animals.
https://eliterate.us/thinking-about-alternative-credentials/
For Dr. Jill Buban, some modern skills are more perishable than skills of the past and continuously re-skilling is a permanent feature of work. “Nearly one billion people will need to be up-skilled by 2032,” she said. “In addition, over 17 million American workers may need to switch occupations by the end of the decade.” As a sector well known to move a little slowly, higher education now must be innovative and increase activity in the skills-based area by increasing innovation and speed. “To keep up with that ever changing workforce, it’s so important to have some agility in the education sector,” Dr. Buban said.
This multiplier event, entitled “Digital micro-credentials. A solution with a vision for tomorrow’s educational needs” and organised as part of the ECCOE project, focused on the highly relevant and cutting-edge topic in the present and future of education: namely the role of micro-credentials (MCs) in the unbundling of higher education. Among the 25 participants who attended, there were 6 international (Croatia, Portugal, Iran, UK and Tunisia), and 19 national participants coming from other Spanish universities and from different professional contexts as commented below. During the event, different aspects of this topic were explored, such as the importance of personalised lifelong learning, the need to include more diverse and international types of educational offerings in formal education systems, how to relate such systems to the world of work, as well as the importance of the processes of recognition and accreditation of such learning experiences.
A globally accepted definition doesn’t exist yet for these smaller learning units but microcredentials – also often referred to as alternative or non-degree credentials – are emerging as a term to describe education that falls between courses and degrees. Microcredentials include certificates, digital badges, licences and apprenticeships, the latter equating to full qualifications in Europe.
https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20220705223949571