Opinions

James Cook University VC Simon Biggs highlights AI’s role in personalising learning, widening access for remote communities, and supporting student wellbeing.

Bill Shorten, now Vice-Chancellor of the University of Canberra, calls for lifelong learning, tech-enabled skills pathways, and sector-wide collaboration over competition.

At the Engagement Australia conference, leaders from Universities Australia, Engagement Australia and the Robert Menzies Institute debated the social licence of universities—why it’s been lost, how to regain it, and how success will be measured—following a keynote by UQ Vice-Chancellor Debbie Terry.

Kelly Palmer led global corporate learning at LinkedIn, Degreed, Yahoo and Sun Microsystems. Inspired by the audacious gaols of Silicon Valley, her mission is to change the way the world learns. She has spent a career pursuing that mission in corporate learning settings before bringing the expertise to bear as Chief Strategy Officer at Southern New Hampshire University. She coined the term The Expertise Economy in a book that outlines how learning in the global economy has shifted from degrees or credentials to skills and expertise. The move from ‘what we know’ to ‘what we can do’ is now widespread in a world transformed by AI as Kelly outlined as a keynote in the recent Singapore applied learning conference where we first met.

Soon Joo Gog, Tracey Donnery, Patrick Kidd, and May Sok Mui Lim join the podcast. Skills Future Singapore, SkillsNet Ireland and FSO in Australia are skills initiatives within national tertiary education systems. Ireland has the world’s highest productivity and Singapore ranks second in global competitiveness. As Australia’s competitiveness is challenged by national economic productivity being unchanged in 20 years, should we develop national skills strategy alone or learn from the best? This panel from the recent Applied Learning Conference at Singapore Institute of Technology compares national approaches in Singapore, Ireland and Australia.

Sarah DeMark is an assessment expert leading education and workforce outcomes as Vice Provost at Western Governors University. This is the worlds largest university, is online, and soon turns 30 years old. Its education model is competency-based, equity-oriented, and based in Utah. It pioneers recording and demonstrating the future-work skills of its learners through an achievement wallet. It is in the vanguard of a tech-enabled global skills agenda. And as co host Mike Hale from VitalSource argues it provides a scalable foundation for external partnerships that are serving WGU students and alumni and others in the lifelong learning ecosystem.

Professor Duncan Ivison is the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Manchester where staff members including Alan Turing defined the concepts of algorithmic and computational automation. Duncan draws on his global experience from Canada, the US, Australia and the UK to revisit the purpose and future of universities in the fastest period of computational advancement to date. How has the global landscape of higher education evolved and where will it develop next?

Verity Firth as Chair of Engagement Australia and Vice-President of Societal Impact, Equity and Engagement at UNSW joins with guest host Alphia Possamai-Inesedy PVC of Student Success of WSU. They discuss the challenges universities face in maintaining or seeking to regain social licence and to serve community needs. They explore how the Accord considered this issue and how the new ATEC will be a circuit breaker in measuring research impact and creating mission based compacts. It gives a comprehensive policy-informed overview and insight into the landscape of community engagement in Australia ahead of the exciting next conference of Engagement Australia hosted at The University of Queensland on July 22-23.

An episode from a HEDx study tour of the UK and from the foyer of the HEPI Conference in London. Sally Curtain of Bendigo Kangan Institute, Andrea Burrows of OES and Caroline Dunne are among the HEDx tour party and Tash Stoeckel one of the hosts along with Tim Dunne of Surrey and Lisa Brodie of TEDI London. The episode gives insights into the plight of tertiary education in the two countries and how AI, online education, tertiary harmonisation, regulation and the skills agenda are viewed in the two systems. The one common feature is the need for change, now.