The Future of Vocational Training 🛠️ Transcend Newsletter XIII
The vocational schools of tomorrow, the new job board and look for Transcend!
Morning!
This week we’ll analyze the new wave of projects shaping how vocational training is delivered around the world, plus a few big announcements on our end!
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tl;dr: technology is enabling new ways to provide vocational training at scale, addressing some previous gaps and preparing individuals for the jobs of tomorrow.
1) What is Vocational Training?
Vocational training focuses on how to perform specific technical skills, as opposed to universities that teach a more holistic set of skills and knowledge. Generally, they are taught through short courses (>2 years) and at a lower cost per student. In recent years too, the focus in vocational schools has shifted from teaching skills to preparing students for specific jobs in high demand in the economy.
We are going to distinguish between two buckets of vocational training:
⚙️Technical training - most professions touched by vocational schools, like nursing and medical assistants, IT, contractors, personal care, etc.
💻Technological training - professions dealing with technology, which are growing in demand and are seeing a great shortage of talent, like software engineering, data, design, etc.
2) Why should we care?
We are seeing a perfect storm in the market for vocational training, both technical and technological. There are 3 main factors:
A degree for all? All around the world, the narrative of the early 21st century portrayed the university degree as the greatest decision for social mobility. In 2019, and particularly in developed economies like the US and the EU, this no longer seems like the mainstream view - in the US, 40% of recent university graduates are underemployed, and income levels for vocational school graduates are catching up in certain professions.
Global skills gap: companies around the world cite talent shortages as the main barrier to adopting more technological innovation, this being particularly acute for highly skilled manual labor and digital skills. 84% of American employees observe this gap in their workplace.
Employment rates: 60% of Gen-Z students list finding a job post-graduation as their top priority, and vocational schools can deliver great outcomes in the face of falling employability for university graduates.
3) The future of vocational training
It is our belief that technology can play a major role in defining sustainable models for vocational training. Governments and nonprofits will play a very important role as well, but there are four advantages that technology and the private sector can use to shape this space:
🌐1. Lower costs of providing service - using technology to provide online content at your own pace can be an effective strategy given high costs of maintaining real estate as a vocational school. Calbright is the most exciting project trying out this approach.
👐 2. No more physical constraints: a new vocational school where the instruction is delivered online and the training on the site of potential employers reduces costs but also breaks the physical barriers that keep employers in geographically remote areas from hiring more talent (bridging the geography gap).
🚪3. Employer connection - private startups can tailor their offerings to the needs of employers, and create sustainable hiring pipelines, like SV Academy is doing for sales.
👴4. Lifelong learning - this short-term focus on training for a specific job leaves an opportunity for lifelong training. Workers will access educational content every few years to keep up with the changing nature of jobs: 54% of all employees globally will require significant reskilling by 2022, and 35% of these are expected to require additional training of up to six months (per WEF).
The main challenge to date is the financing question: since employee tenure is only decreasing, why would they want to bear the cost of educating their workforce if they’ll leave soon? In-house training programs like the popular IBM sales program have slowly faded, so the financing may now be shared between employers (SVAcademy), students (through lower-risk instruments like ISAs), industry alliances, governments and even through learning saving plans.
4) Projects in the space
⚙️Technical training
Caregiving: NextStep
Advanced Manufacturing: 180skills
IT, Computer Support, Cybersecurity: Calbright College
Apprenticeships: WhiteHat, CareerWise Colorado
No technology-focused project that I know of in Hospitality/Serving, Construction Contractors, Aesthetic and Personal care.
💻Technological training (bootcamp model)
Digital credentials: Pathstream
Growth: Demand Curve
Software Engineering: all the coding schools
What do you think? We’d love to get your thoughts, please leave a comment at the bottom of the newsletter!
⚠️Launch Alert! At Transcend, we are launching our Job Board, where you can find the best opportunities in our network. If you are looking to hire or get hired, fill out this form.
🗣️On why translation matters, and how Learning Equality (by Khan Academy) saw better outcomes when meeting students where they are. We are doubling down on this thesis, and will be supporting and advising Nativ Learning (in Karachi, Pakistan) as they make learning more accessible to the non-English-speaking world!
✳️Building diverse workplaces - Veni Kunche (DiversifyTech) led an open call for dev roles in her job board. Learn more about how your hiring process may be hurting diversity.
🇬🇧Our friends at Creator Fund are expanding to Scotland, and they are looking for student scouts, startups and partners in this region! Drop us a line if you want an intro to the team, or know how to use a Scottish flag emoji.
📝Future of hiring - have heard great things about Scouted, who matches aspiring candidates with inspiring companies, would love to hear about the experience from other job-seekers.
Psst psst, our Transcend website has a new look. Check it out and let us know what you think by replying to this email!
Microverse
Our friends at Microverse are hiring a Project Manager that will work remotely to build the future of coding schools!
We are excited to see the team grow, and they are hiring for two more roles: a Student Success Associate and a Head of Marketing.
Let us know if you are interested in learning more about the role, and we can send more information on the job.
Jobs in our Network
All the updated job opportunities can be found on our new Job Board!
DoSomething.org - Business Development Associate
Strive - Strategy & Operations Lead | Marketing Intern
Minerva Schools - Associate for Global Network Development
Graide Network - Marketing Manager
Aula - Multiple Roles (Remote, US & UK)
d.school K12 Lab - Education Futurist Fellow
Contracting opportunities with Transcend Network
We are always looking for contractors to match with our portfolio companies and network! Get in touch here.
Thanks for reading another week!
For any feedback, requests or ideas, reply to this email or fill out this form.
Alberto(alberto@transcend-network.com) & Michael (michael@transcend-network.com)