Professor Martin Bean of the Bean Centre joins the podcast with co-host Sue Kokonis Chief Academic Officer of OES to discuss his new book “Toolkit for Turbulence” with practical advice for leaders managing ambiguity in higher education.
In today’s changing world, the synergy between education and technology has become a guiding principle and a central goal for contemporary university leaders. This convergence reflects the evolving expectations of students and has taken a prominent role in university strategies and broader global policy ambitions. While it offers immense potential, it also presents a profound challenge for a new generation of leaders who must navigate this terrain in an increasingly ambiguous and turbulent environment.
A new book, The New Learning Economy: Thriving Beyond Higher Education, has investigated the changing landscape of Australia’s tertiary economic model and commitments to lifelong learning.
This book sets out an agenda for how global higher education can embrace change. It makes the case and shows the way for how applying innovation and technology, as part of strategies in new policy contexts, can deliver transformed equity outcomes for global learners. The book arises from interviews with 50 leaders of universities, employers, technology companies and of policy bodies leading global higher education.
Higher education is far from the omni-channel model at present. Many universities have established sophisticated online offerings often in partnership with EdTech providers. Some of the universities that have got closest to an omni-channel model have established sophisticated learning innovation units and strong partnerships with EdTech eco-systems. But the challenge of integrating that offering with their on campus and face to face models of delivery, and the systems that sit across the two, are significant.
Professor Ann Kirschner, Interim President of Hunter College at City University of New York shares thoughts of how far all universities are away from omni-channel delivery of learning as she considers responses being considered to the Great Upheaval in Higher Education.
Brandon Busteed as Global Head of Partnerships for Kaplan joins the podcast to discuss the changing value proposition and sentiment towards higher education and how this is creating a growing focus on lifelong learning. He outlines how universities, employers and those facilitating relationships between them, are ensuring higher education meets students where they are at, not where we ask them to be.
One could argue that higher education has gone from being a rite of passage for the privileged few, to now being more directly connected to the need to close skills gaps. The over-riding sense is that education increasingly needs to meet people, both learners and employers, where they are at. This means both in the multiple and continuous life stages of their turning to learning, and the skills they need for its primary purpose for them of being productive in a changing world of work. Meeting learners where they are at increasingly means through technology and at work and at times that suit them and through the facilitation of others. It has long left being an absolute requirement for it to be on campus, face to face only, and at times that suit us and our systems.
Professor Alwyn Louw, Vice Chancellor of Torrens University of Australia and Jodie Davis, Registrar of Griffith University, join the HEDx podcast co-hosted by Ben Hallett of Vygo to discuss what is required for universities to comply with new legislation to support our pushes for student support to allow equity goals to be achieved. Data and systems are vital for immediate action. And renewed purpose, leadership and culture change are the opportunity to do more than stir the pot.
Overcoming the barriers to student equity in higher education has much to learn from research and best practice. Professor Sarah O’Shea of Charles Sturt University and newly-promoted Professor Paul Harpur of UQ and Universities Enable share insights into five principles that inform how we seek greater equity and inclusion for all of our students. At their heart is the issue of changing our culture.
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