Opinions

Paulo and Guilherme Silveira are two brothers who co-founded and lead Alura as an integrated set of companies delivering IT skills in Brazil. They do so with support from SEEK Investments whose MD Josh Nester joins me on this episode. Their business spans from state partnerships in K-12, through a university they bought and now operate, to skills provision for alumni lifelong learners, that grow into corporate education for new leaders of businesses. In total they serve more than 2 million learners as a business. The example gives pointers of new revenue and diversification opportunities that others could learn from.

George Siemens of Southern New Hampshire University Human Systems and UniSA has pioneered technology advances in higher education and recent advances in AI. He is now developing for launch an AI-first university together with Paul LeBlanc the former SNHU President. He describes how it would be negligent for Vice Chancellor’s and other leaders to ignore AI right now in their plans for the future. As all Australian universities approach the deadline for submitting plans for how they will respond to AI to the regulator. Listen as Jason Lodge of UQ and Martin Betts dissect how he outlines a 7-point action plan arising from a leadership vision based on extreme curiosity.

Jason Lodge of the University of Queensland was a member of a roundtable led from ANU. It was commissioned by the Australian Universities Accord process to question whether the drivers of disruption for our sector made it imminent. Listen to Jason’s views from his experience in the learning sciences of how AI and other drivers are changing higher education globally. In this episode we dissect how the Accord has been informed of imminent change and disruption. Has this been kicked down the road along with so much else in the way our visions of the future are being obscured by short term political issues and are ignoring the advances of AI and technology?

Ann Sherry AO, Chancellor of QUT and leading Australian business woman, outlines cultural challenges in universities compared to other sectors she has presided over. She sees the need for changed employment practices to align individual and organisational incentives if declining student demand and experiences and troubling financial circumstances are to be overcome. She sees the disruption happening in the sector needing a sharper set of conversations around what universities are, who they serve, and how they need to change what they offer. When asked how serious a university’s financial situation is she said “you can’t do anything without money and its the absolute focus of her whole council” as it is for more than half of the other Australian universities currently in deficit. She sees a future of fewer universities, partnerships with TAFE and new structures that need to be tested.

Shai Reshef is Founder and President of the University of the People. Founded on the belief that higher education is a basic human right, UoPeople is the first non-profit, tuition-free, American, accredited online university. Dedicated to opening access to higher education globally, UoPeople is designed to help learners overcome financial, geographic, political, and personal constraints keeping them from studies. UoPeople currently serves 137,000 students from over 200 countries. Over 16,500 of these students are refugees. He joins the HEDx podcast in an episode hosted by Martin Betts and Cate Gilpin of Welcoming Universities.

Professor Joan Gabel is the Chancellor of University of Pittsburgh. She joins the HEDx podcast to outline how a leading US research powerhouse from the rust belt is engaging with technology and industry partners to drive learning and innovation. Her university plays a lead role in the Global Forum of Competitiveness Councils. She argues that eventually we are not going to talk about what we will do with AI anymore. It will be as absurd as asking what we are going to do with the internet. Her view of the prospects of universities is that if we look a few years in the future we will see survivors of online providers and some campus based places that will close. She sees that there’s a limit to how much people will pay and how long it takes. The market will insist on greater efficiency and she is exploring a “PIttforce” skills program to meet that need.

Deputy Vice Chancellor Deborah Johnston MBE of London South Bank University and graduate of SOAS and Cambridge University asks these big questions with Paul Harpur OAM of UQ and I. She argues that universities with a mission for social mobility are better placed to serve our more inclusive skills-based agenda. But they need to have the courage to stand out from the crowd, be freed from excessive regulation, and be measured for what they are good for more than what they are good at.

Minerva Founder Ben Nelson outlines the work that builds on the measurable outcomes of improved learning being achieved in Minerva University to change what he sees as an outdated higher education model. He argues that  the current higher education approach has students cram, pass and forget the knowledge they have gained from what we all know to be failed educational processes and curricula. Minerva University seeks to teach diverse students to learn and Minerva Project seeks to scale that model in transforming a 1000 year old university model over a 50 year period of change. What do you think of this model and where progress is up to?