Some observations on the race to higher education, digital technologies and the future of work

ABSTRACT

A fundamental shift is taking place in the way we think about the future of work and its relationship to education, training and the labour market. Until recently, expanding higher education was widely believed to result in higher earnings, reflecting an insatiable demand for knowledge workers. In the United Kingdom, this race to higher education included a major transfer of resources from further and adult provision to higher education. This paper raises a number of issues in rethinking tertiary education in a context of digital disruption.

KEYWORDS:

• HE
• Digital
• Technology
• Work
• Equity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. This article draws on ideas recently published including collaborations with other authors, see (Brown, Lauder, and Cheung 2020; Brown 2019, 2020;; Brown, Souto-Otero and Lloyd, (2018)).

2. This was also part of the explanation for increasing wage inequalities between winners and losers (Goldin and Katz), despite important differences in the magnitude of inequality (Piketty).

3. The distinction between unravelling and unbundling is that the former may result from the unintended consequence of purpose actions and institutional contradictions, while the latter is a deliberate strategy to, for example, dis-aggregate jobs or skill sets, to take advantage of the granularity of big data (see Brown P (2020))

4. See Now and Then – The Process of Invention, Economist, 25 April 2015, and Hyejin Youn, Deborah Strumsky, Luis M. A. Bettencourt and Jose Lobo, 2015 Invention as a Combinatorial Process: Evidence from US Patents’, Interface, 12, pp.1–8. [available online]

5. PwC (2017) UK Economic Outlook, March 2017, p. 44 www.pwc.co.uk/economic-services/ukeo/pwc-uk- economic-outlook-full-report-march-2017-v2.pdf

6. Gerald Huff, The Rising Risk of Technological Unemployment, https://medium.com/@geraldhuff/the-rising-risk-of-technological-unemployment-8fe97a985ddf

7. See UK labour market projections: 2014 to 2024(Working Futures) https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-labour-market-projections-2014-to-2024

8. A distinction between ‘labour scarcity’ and ‘job scarcity’, is developed in Brown, Lauder, and Cheung 2020).

9. See Figure 2 Participation in Learning 1996–2019, page 9. https://www.learningandwork.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/2019-Participation-Survey-Report.pdf

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Phillip Brown

Phillip Brown is currently leading a seven country study of Digital Futures of Work, in collaboration with the Institute of Adult Learning, Singapore University of Social Sciences. He Chaired the review of digital innovation for the economy and future of work in Wales (2019) and is a Trustee of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR). The Death of Human Capital? It's Failed Promise and How to Renew it in an Age of Disruption (2020) with Hugh Lauder and Sin Yi Cheung was published by Oxford University Press.