OEB 2015 - Plenary Debate

(0:56 people's noises)

(check who) 1.17 We've got one hour
and a quarter.

(confused voices then 1:31) How do we know
when these things are going to be turned on?

(confused voices, then1:58) What? OK?
Right.

(Chairperson 2:03) Ladies and Genltemen,
can I ask everyone

to take their seats, please?

We're about to begin,
so if you're visiting the bar,

can you charge your glasses and return
to your seats, and then we'll begin.

We've got an hour and a quarter
for this debate.

OK, can I -- Welcome everybody to
the Online Educa OEB debate.

I'm not sure what number this is
in the series of debates that we've had,

I think it may be getting up to our 10th.

What I can tell you is that in the time
that we've been having these debates

and that I've been chairing them,
my eyesight has now gone so bad

that I can't possibly read any notes
that I have without using glasses, so

I think we must be on at least our 10th.

What I can also tell you is that
Online Educa itself, OEB,

this year is celebrating
its 21st anniversary.

So I think that perhaps deserves
a round of applause.

So happy birthday to Online Educa --
(Applause) -- this fantastic conference.

And 21 years ago was a very difficult --
very different world indeed,

when one thinks about the scale and scope
of change that there --

that has taken place in the last 21 years.

One statistic I was reading recently was
that in the UK, in 1994, 21 years ago,

there were only 67 mobile phones
per 1000 people.

But only ten years later, in 2004,

there were more mobiles in the UK
than people.

And that pattern of spread
of mobile communications alone

has spread across the world and
in Africa, for instance,

those of you who have been to
Elearning Africa will have learned about

the spread of mobile communications
across the African continent.

So in terms of the scale
of technological change,

and the spread of that change
across the world,

the change in that short period of time,
in these past 21 years alone,

has been enormous, and we heard about

the scale of it in the opening
plenary session this morning.

We live in a world that is globalized,
interconnected, hyperlinked

and that scale of change we're
experiencing, have experienced

in the last 21 years, is going to
gather pace and continue.

And all that is going to create a huge
challenge for education and training,

which is going to be at the heart

of dealing with both the positive and
negative aspects of that change.

And that's why the motion that we're
dealing with today, in this debate,

is so important, and why the whole subject
of giving young people the skills

that they need to cope with
the challenges of this new world

that we all are going to --
that we are creating, is so important.

We've got four speakers,
four panel speakers

to open the debate this evening

and I'm going to ask each of them
to speak for 10 minutes,

and then I'm going to --

-- two of them will speak for the motion,
obviously,and two against --

then I will throw open the debate
to all of you,

but if you want to intervene
whilst they are speaking, because

we're having a parliamentary-style
debate,

then you can try to intervene on them

and if they want to take
your intervention,

then they can do so, but it will be
entirely up to you.

And if they don't, then you can draw
whatever conclusions you want from that.

But I want to ensure that
we keep the flow going,

so I'm not going to let you bully them
but I'm going to allow you,

if you want to make a particular point,

or if you want to make
a short intervention, to do so.

Then after they've spoken, we'll
throw open the debate to the floor

and you can make your contribution,

but do please realize that time
is of the essence,

so please try to keep it short and
to the point, succinct.

This is the kind of debate equivalent
of texting.

So, no long rambling contributions,
because I will cut you off

if you try to do that.

So, very short contributions, please.

And then I'll ask each of our --
I'll ask one speaker from each side

to sum up, and then we will take a vote,
and we'll do that by a show of hands.

And I've also made it clear
to all the speakers that they may

say things that they don't necessarily
want to be held to in the future,

so I hope that you will understand that.

But this is an opportunity for us
to explore some of the issues,

but don't take it all too seriously,

and don't come and accuse people of saying
things that you would --

that they might not necessarily always
want to be held to.

With that in mind, I'm going to ask
our first speaker, who is Jo Swinson.

Jo Swinson, who is the former Minister
for business, innovation and skills

in the UK's coalition government of
2010 to 2015,

to speak first for the motion.

And Jo, since leaving Parliament,
has begun a new career

and is involved in an award within
a data intelligence company

called Clear Returns

and she is an expert on the challenges
and opportunities of the digital age.

So, over to you, Jo.

(Jo Swinson) Thank you very much indeed,
Harold.

And I'm absolutely delighted to be here
in Berlin at OEB.

A bit of a first, actually, the first
technology-related conference

that I've been to where there is a queue
in the ladies' loos!

I have to say I was particularly pleased
by that, not only as a feminist,

but also as a Brit who appreciates
the art of queuing.

So it was good on two fronts.

So, this house believes that
21st century skills aren't being taught,

and they should be, is the motion
that I want to convince you

to support this evening.

We absolutely need to be equipping
our young people,

and indeed, people at every stage
of their lives,

with the skills that they need
for the 21st century.

And our education systems,
and our wider society,

have an important role to play in this.

But I will put it to you, this evening,
that when it comes to technical skills,

when it comes to social skills,
and vitally,

when it comes to capacity
to embrace change,

we are not yet rising to that challenge
sufficiently.

There are very specific skills,
there are gaps in science and technology

that are not being properly filled. 9:32

These shortages are causing
significant problems

for businesses, for employers.

Half of engineering companies say that
they have delayed taking forward

new products or services, because
they have vacancies

that are so hard to fill, because
the skills are not there to recruit.

Digital start-ups are often in real need
of software developers

that they cannot find sufficiently.

And companies of all sizes, grappling with
cybersecurity challenges

struggle to have the skills that they need
to take on those important issues.

As Harold mentioned, I'm now a director
of a company called Clear Returns.

It's been going for about three years,
based in Glasgow, and uses data analytics

to help retailers understand the problems
they have with product returns

and therefore successfully cutting
the costs for retailers,

and resulting in better
customer satisfaction.

But in our technology team of 17 people,
there are 12 different nationalities

and not one of those people went through
the school education system in the UK,

because the skills are not taught
up to scratch.

Now, there have been some improvements
and as to 2014,

computer science has been introduced into
the curriculum in the UK,

but that is not the end of the matter,

because 11% of computer science graduates
are unemployed.

In fact, that's one of the highest
unemployment rates

for any subject discipline,

at a time when we have a huge shortage
of these very skills.

Something is going very wrong
when that is the case.

And this is not just about
teaching people to code.

Fashionable ....... (check) undoubtedly
is at the moment (check)

and it is necessary that we do have
people who can code.

But it's not some kind of silver bullet
on its own.

Actually, it's the building blocks
that we need to be putting in place,

the things that lie before you get
to the point of coding,

the logic, the basic maths,
enhancing those skills,

so that people can put
those building blocks together

and create an argument or a
train of thought or a mathematical proof,

or indeed, a piece of code that will
instruct a machine to do something.

Yet our maths skills
are also going backwards.

A King's College, London, study found that
compared to the 1970's

young people today are significantly less
well equipped in the field of mathematics.

And it's also worth pointing out
that we are missing out,

when it comes to teaching these skills
on almost half of the population.

Only one in five A-level physics students
is a girl.

When it comes to computer science,
that figure drops to 1 in 10.

Now, it's wonderful to be at
a technology conference

where there is a queue
in the ladies' loos,

but even at this conference, if you
have a look at the speakers' brochure,

only 8 of the 35 main speakers are women,
so where are the women?

We are missing out
on that important talent

who will not then get in the fields
that we need for the 21st century

to enable all of our economies
to flourish.

We're also not doing well enough
at the social skills

which have always been imported --
important,

and I would argue, are even more so
in the context of the 21st century.

Employers have long complained that
they get coming into the work place

are not yet ready for work.

I have to say there is that thing
I've observed,

when new graduates starting out
in the work place

seem to be allergic to
using the telephone

for the purpose it was originally
designed for.

I've lost count of the number of times
when, speaking to a member of staff

about the particular project
that they are trying to make happen,

and it seems so stuck, and I say:

"What happened when you asked
that person about it?"

"Oh, I sent them an email and
they didn't get back to me."

You know, for all the wonders that
technology can undoubtedly do

in helping us in our working life, when
you want to get people to do something,

an email is very easy to ignore, and it is
much harder to just put to one side

a face-to-face person or contact,
or on the telephone.

And relationships are absolutely critical
to 21st century work places and skills:

getting things done, collaborating in
teams, motivating others.

Yet when we assess children
and young people in the education system,

it is genuinely done
on a pure individual basis,

not looking at how they are actually
operating within a drip setting (check).

And when it comes to skills
in terms of relationships,

something like personal, social
and health education, which I would argue,

is absolutely essential to help young
people learn to navigate relationships,

and important issues like consent
when it comes to sex,

it's not even compulsory
in the UK curriculum.

In a world where ultimation is increasing,

where jobs that we've already seen through
the Industrial Revolution,

that manual jobs have been replaced
by machines,

that with the next stage of technological
advancement, many, many more,

in things like accountancy and
professional services,

are also going to be replaced
by algorithms,

the human social relationship skills
are going to be in even more demand

and therefore deserve much more attention.

And my final point is that we have not
done enough to prepare people

for the world of change.

A little while ago, I spoke at a School
Award ceremony to 12-year olds

And I was to explain to them
how the world had changed

since I was there age.

And one of the examples I used was
the process of taking a photograph.

And I described how, when I was 12,
you would have a thing called a camera

that was all that it did, it was just
for taking photographs,

you would have to get a piece of film,
physically,

to load it into the camera machine,
you'd had to do that pretty carefully,

because you didn't want to expose the film
and it was quite a fiddly process.

You wouldn't know whether the photos
you were taking were any good.

You would have to take at least 24,
or sometimes 36,

depending on which particular
piece of film you put into your camera,

before you would then take it along
to a pharmacist's or a chemist's shop,

pay some money and then go and do
something else for a few days,

at which point you could come back

and be presented with your little
envelope of photographs,

and see if any of them had turned out OK.

And I was counting on these 12-year olds
looked at me

like I might well be lying to them:
this is how it worked,

because of course these days, you know,
within a matter of seconds,

you can take dozens of selfies
in your phone,

apply however many Instagram filters
you like,

and share it with the entire world,
just without leaving the school.

The pace of change is accelerating hugely.

Here in 2015, for us to consider
what even are 21st century skills,

is like going back to 1915 and trying
to imagine the space race, nuclear power,

the internet, or the kind of social change
going from a situation

where women didn't even have the vote,

to electing a woman as Prime Minister
in the UK,

or the change with gay rights,

or the ending of racial segregation
in the United States.

We can't even conceive of all that
the 21st century is going to bring.

And so, more than anything, with
this huge pace of increasing knowledge,

more than anything, what we need to do
is equip people

to cope with and thrive
on change and uncertainty.

Instead, we have bunches of kids being
processed through the education system

that doesn't look that different
to several decades ago.

So we really do have a problem here,
in terms of the skills

that we are teaching and more importantly,
not teaching well enough.

Whether it's technical skills,
whether it's those social skills

or whether it's the vitally important
ability to be resilient,

to recover from change and setbacks,

and to apply yourself in a new way
to a new set of challenges and horizons.

These are the things
we must be focusing on,

and we aren't yet rising
to that challenge.

I support the motion. 18:06

(Applause)

(Moderator) OK, thank you very much
for that, Jo.

Our next speaker, who is going to speak
against the motion, is Allan Päll,

who is the Secretary General of
the European Youth Forum,

which is the representative body
for youth organisations in Europe

and he is an advocate for youth's rights.

He lead student unions in Estonia and
at the European level, and has advocated

for students' voices to be included
in educational policy. Allan:

(Allan Päll) All right,
thank you very much, chair.

I would like to very much support many
of the claims made by our opposition.

However, when it comes to the question
and when it comes to this specific motion,

this house does not believe that
21st century skills aren't being taught,

because, well, let me put it very bluntly
and very simply:

the whole notion of what are 21st century
skills is often just a bunch of nonsense,

if I would sum it up very briefly.

But let me go into it a bit more.

There are many definitions of
what these skills could be

and I fully agree that they do include
everything mentioned by the opposition.

However, there are many other ways
of looking at it.

So if we are to say whether these are
being taught or not,

even if we have a problem of the very
definition of what these skills are,

how can we say that they are
not being taught so determinedly?

Some of the elements that can be
mentioned as 21st century skills

are simple things, as critical thinking,
problem-solving, reasoning, analysis,

research skills, creativity, curiosity,
perseverance, self-direction

oral and written communication,
leadership,

information and communication technology,
social justice, literacy,

civic, ethical behavior, global awareness:
the list goes on and on and on.

So, indeed, many of those things, perhaps,
are not being taught enough,

or specifically enough,
in our educational systems.

But that doesn't mean that
this is not happening.

Let me ask you one simple question:

If you believe that we don't acquire
many of these skills

in our educational environment,
be it in a formal setting

or a socializing moment
in your school or at university,

would we actually witness the pace
of change in society that we are seeing.

Almost all of us have gone through
the educational system.

So, we must get a lot of those skills
also through that.

I do agree, though,
that there is something to be said about

the question of how specific are we
when we look at those skills.

Because that is true that most curricula --

education is very much compartmentalized
into very specific subject areas

and we're seeing an increasing trend
of those subject areas becoming

more and more specific.

And thus indeed, there is perhaps
not enough emphasis on looking at,

or thinking really about are we acquiring
all those sets of skills

that are important for our socialization,
etc., our technical skills as well,

as mentioned by the opposition.

One of the things that I would like
to highlight is that

the schools and universities, and
vocational education and training

is not only about the formal
learning outcomes

that we are beginning to measure
more and more.

It is also about the social environment
at that very school or university

that determines a lot of
what education gives us. 22:18