Enriching Education: Early Interaction Between Youth and Employers

The future will be about pairing the cognitive, social and emotional capabilities of human beings with machines. The Drawing the Future report, featuring 20,000 children aged 7 – 11 from 20 countries, concluded that kids’ perspectives were often based on gender stereotypes, socio-economic backgrounds, and TV and social media. The CEO of Education and Employers, Nick Chambers, whose organization collaborated with the OECD on the report, says 36% of young people based their career aspirations on someone they knew, and 45% because of TV, film or radio, with “only 1% learning about a job from someone visiting their school.” Gender and socio-economic stereotyping had a lot of impact, with 20 times as many boys planning “to have a role in the armed forces or firefighting services” as compared with girls, who “aspired to be involved in the fashion industry.” Chambers says the goal of his organization is to broaden youth perspectives and ensure that children don’t feel restricted by the media's version of who or what they should become in the future. His organization also hopes to educate and prepare future workers with the skills employers value most. 

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Nick Chambers is the Chief Executive of Education and Employers, a UK based charity. Previously, Chambers studied Environmental Management and ran his own business. He also was Director of Education at Business in the Community. During this time, he oversaw the production of a report on school governance on behalf of the National Council of Education Excellence. 

CMRubinWorld’s award-winning series, The Global Search for Education, brings together distinguished thought leaders in education and innovation from around the world to explore the key learning issues faced by most nations. The series has become a highly visible platform for global discourse on 21st century learning, offering a diverse range of innovative ideas which are presented by the series founder, C. M. Rubin, together with the world’s leading thinkers. 

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