Learning a Living is a timely, engaging and original contribution to the debate over the relationship between education, innovation, work and the workforce. The acute concerns around rising unemployment, especially amongst the young (in the context of the global recession), have sharpened focus on how we prepare young people for the world of work. This authoritative overview of the major trends shaping education for work highlights fresh thinking and inspiring practice from around the world, and ways of encouraging the spread of such innovative practice. It is illustrated throughout with outstanding colour photography by leading photojournalist, Reza. Initiatives covered include: Big Picture Learning, USA; Rising Sun Energy Centre, California, USA; La Bastilla Technical Agricultural School, Nicaragua; Lumiar Schools, Brazil; LOYAC, Kuwait; INJAZ, Morocco; Jordan Career Education Foundation (JCEF); Silver Human Resources Centre, Japan; South University of Science and technology of China (SUSTC); Infosys, India; BRAC, Bangladesh; Widows' Alliance Network (WANE), Ghana; Smallholders' Rural Radio, Nigeria; 2ie, Burkina Faso; Omnia, Finland.
Table of Contents
Section 1: What is happening to work and the workforce? Section 2: How is the organisation of learning changing in response? Section 3: The foundations: innovating how we acquire the right skills Section 4: The development: innovating how we solve our problems Section 5: The future: how we learn to create possibilities Section 6: Learning for Life: Models and Messages Section 7: Ensuring that we Learn Our Living
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Learning a Living: Radical Innovation in Education for Work [Paperback]
Welcome to our blog series for the 2012 World Innovation Summit for Education publication, which focuses on radical innovation at the education/work interface. As we travel the world checking out the most innovative examples of projects, programmes and people in this area we're blogging about our experiences.
June 10, 2012
I’ve been struggling for the past couple of days to start a blog about my experiences in Bangladesh – not because there is nothing to write, but because I couldn’t imagine how I would pick one story. So I’m throwing focus out the window because in fact, it is the breadth and ambition of BRAC’s work that is breathtaking and changing millions of lives. BRAC is the world’s largest NGO, founded in Bangladesh, and with 60,000 employees there alone (they are increasingly working internationally too). Their ambition is no less than to alleviate poverty in their country, and to empower all Bangladeshi citizens to build a better, more prosperous future together.
Needless to say, this mission cannot be served with one type of programme, or a single client group. BRAC’s major insight is that for all Bangladeshi citizens – especially the poorest – to pull themselves out of economic, social and political poverty, the support they are offered must address all elements of the personal context and collective history that are holding them back.
So I have met women in an urban slum who are being supported to build small businesses and improve their lives. They receive microfinance loans to kick start enterprises selling saris, cakes, fish and tea. But that is not enough to sustain a better life. BRAC also offers them training to manage their money and their accounts, to sign their own name and to get an identity card to protect their assets. They learn about basic health and hygiene so they can keep their businesses running, and their children safe.
Saira grew up in a rural village and moved to the city when she could no longer generate any income to support her family. On moving to the city, she struggled to find work and ended up brick-breaking like many others – hard, unreliable, physical work. She and her children had no more than one meal a day. Following support and a small loan from BRAC, she now runs a cake business that makes enough money to send her youngest daughters to school and to feed the whole family three times a day. Perhaps most importantly, BRAC has helped her to learn about her rights. This has had a major impact. Saira’s husband abandoned her eight years ago, with six daughters to support. When he heard about her flourishing business, he tried to come back to share in her success. And she would not take him back – unheard of in traditional communities.
I have also met young children at a BRAC primary school, desperate to show me the interactive games they use to learn Bengali, English and other subjects. They clamoured to tell me of their ambitions to be doctors, teachers, engineers and even a pilot – despite being too poor even to afford to go to a government school. They too learn a broader, rights-based curriculum that imbues them with far greater control over their own lives, and belief that they can achieve anything. The same is true of the teenagers in an ‘adolescents’ group’ just outside Dhaka, the women in a ‘social capital’ group in a rural village, and the volunteer teachers even further off the beaten track.
BRAC is not an education organization. It is not a micro finance organization and it is not a training organization even though it does all those things. It is a citizen-building organization. It is helping to build a new set of values, skills, aspirations and determination in millions of people by providing them with a platform to do more and better for themselves. I haven’t even mentioned one hundredth of what they do. But Saira’s final reflection on the impact of working with BRAC sums up what I heard over and over again. ‘Now, I am tension free’.
Learning a Living: Radical Innovation in Education for Work The 2012 WISE Book, Learning a Living: Radical Innovation in Education for Work, explores...
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Jan 23, 2013 – Join the live chat with Leonie Shanks, co-author of 'Learning a Living: A Radical Innovation in Education for Work', to discuss the findings of the ...
The 2012 WISE Book, Learning a Living: Radical Innovation in Education for Work, explores ways to improve links between education and today's rapidly ...
Nov 18, 2012 – The World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) has launched Learning a Living: Radical Innovation in Education for Work, a 160-page ...
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Latest WISE Book “Learning a Living: Radical Innovation in Education for Work” offers tangible solutions to rebuilding the relationship between education and the world of work.
Doha, Qatar, November 15, 2012 – The World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) has launched Learning a Living: Radical Innovation in Education for Work, a 160-page book that explores ways to improve links between education and today’s rapidly changing job markets.
The publication is based on 15 case studies and personal stories emerging from forward-thinking educational projects around the world that were identified through the WISE community, including winners of the WISE Awards which showcase and promote educational projects that have a transformative effect upon society.
The book focuses on a critical issue: the failure of education systems to equip students adequately for today’s labor market, and consequently to become productive members of their societies. In Kenya, a UNESCO report found that more than 1 million children were not enrolled in primary school education. In a nation where more than 75 percent of the population is less than 30 years, these numbers will have a gripping effect on Kenya’s economic future. This illustrates the disconnect between education and employment, and reinforces the need to find new ways to bridge the skills gap.
Through statistics, interviews, case studies and photographs, the latest WISE Book highlights the need for innovation in preparing students for work and life in Kenya in 21st century. Learning a Living argues that change is necessary in both education systems and the workplace, but the implications go further and readers are drawn to a suitably important conclusion: Making it easier to acquire skills is no longer enough; today’s students must also acquire entrepreneurial values in order to create the opportunities that will make a real difference for themselves and society.
The book covers a diverse range of projects, including the network of schools created by the NGO BRAC, whose Founder and Chairman, Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, was the first WISE Prize for Education Laureate in 2011. It also includes several WISE Awards winning projects, such as Widows Alliance Network for Sustainable Economic Development in Ghana; The Smallholder Farmers Rural Radio in Nigeria; and Al Jisr School-Business Partnerships in Morocco.
The authors are a team of innovation specialists: Valerie Hannon, Sarah Gillinson and Leone Shanks. WISE also commissioned photographer Reza Deghati (known as Reza) to create vivid images that bring the case studies to life.
“WISE is committed to showcasing new approaches to educational challenges and promoting practical solutions, and this book adds to our track record,” said His Excellency Sheikh Abdulla bin Ali Al-Thani, Ph.D., Chairman of WISE, Qatar Foundation. “In many parts of the world outstanding initiatives have broken the status quo and given young people the prospect of a better life. The gains extend to entire communities. We want these good practices to be recognized and replicated. However, the book is not only for the education community. It is essential that the messages reach decision-makers and thought-leaders who are in a position to introduce change, and we also want to raise awareness among the general public that change is both necessary and possible.”
“The latest WISE Book explores one of the most important challenges of our times – the gap between the worlds of work and education,” said Valerie Hannon, Board Director of the Innovation Unit (London, UK). “Yet, in the face of this challenge, the WISE Book instills optimism – because these are truly brilliant educational initiatives which we hope will be replicated elsewhere. The people behind the selected projects are inspiring models of human creativity and of how innovative thinking can respond to current challenges.”
“The time we spent on the ground learning about these projects made me realize the importance of the WISE Book – its global vision and potential impact,” said Reza, photojournalist for National Geographic since 1991 and founder of Webistan Photo Agency. “Throughout this project, we never underestimated the importance of our task. To be the voice and the eyes – and to share these stories that will ultimately inspire the world.”
The first WISE Book, Innovation in Education: Lessons from Pioneers Around the World, was launched at WISE 2011. It examines 16 pioneering projects that have succeeded in transforming people's lives through education, and it looks at some of the common features of innovation, how innovation happens, and when and how to scale up.
WISE invited writer and innovation expert Charles Leadbeater and photographer Romain Staros Staropoli to visit the people behind the projects in order to find out how ideas have been turned into actions that work at scale. This inspiring publication brings to light the stories of how these initiatives developed and grew to benefit both learners and communities, and it raises awareness of the crucial need for innovation in education worldwide.
Learning a Living: Radical Innovation in Education for Work was launched at the WISE 2012 Summit in Doha, Qatar.
KERRY GLASGOWIS HUMANITY'S LAST BEST CHANCE - Join search for Sustainaabilty's Curricula
101ways-generation.docx 101 ways education can save the world WHAT IF WE DESIGNED LIFELONG LIVELIHOOD LOEARNING SO THAT so that teachers & students, parent & communities were empowered to be ahead of 100 times more tech rather than the remnants of a system that puts macihnes and their exhausts ahead of human life and nature's renewal 2016 is arguably the first time thet educatirs became front and centre to the question that Von neummn asked journalist to mediate back in 1951- what goods will peoples do with 100 times more tech per decade? It appears that while multilaterals like the Un got used in soundbite and twittering ages to claim they valued rifghts & inclusion, pubblic goods & safety, they fotgot theirUN tech twin in Genva has been practising global connectivity since 1865, that dellow Goats of V neumnn has chiared Intellectual Cooperation in the 1920s which pervesrely became the quasi trade union Unesco- it took Abedian inspired educations in 2016 ro reunite ed and tecah as well as health and trade ; 7 decades of the UN not valuing Numenn's question at its core is quite late, but if we dare graviate UN2 aeound this digital coperation question now we give the younger half if the world a chnace especially as a billion poorest women have been synchronised to deep community human development since 1970
Dear Robert - you kindly asked for a short email so that you could see if there is a CGTN anchor in east coast who might confidentially share views with my expectation of how only Asian young women cultural movements (parenting and community depth but amplified by transparent tech in life shaping markets eg health, food, nature..) can return sustainability to all of us
three of my father's main surveys in The Economist 1962-1977 explain imo where future history will take us (and so why younger half of world need friendship/sustainable adaptation with Chinese youth -both on mainland and diaspora)
1962 consider japan approved by JF Kennedy: argued good news - 2 new economic models were emerging through japan korea south and taiwan relevant to all Asia Rising (nrxt to link the whole trading/supply chains of the far east coast down through hong kong and cross-seas at singapore)
1 rural keynsianism ie 100% productivity in village first of all food security- borlaug alumni ending starvation
2 supercity costal trade models which designed hi-tech borderless sme value chains- to build a 20 million person capital or an 8 million person superport you needed the same advances in engineering - partly why this second economic model was win-win for first time since engines begun Glasgow 1760 ; potentially able to leverage tech giant leaps 100 times ahead; the big opportunity von neumann had gifted us - knowhow action networking multiply value application unlike consuming up things
1976 entrepreneurial revolution -translated into italian by prodi - argued that future globalisation big politics big corporate would need to be triangularised by community scaled sme networks- this was both how innovation advancing human lot begins and also the only way to end poverty in the sense of 21st C being such that next girl born can thrive because every community taps in diversity/safety/ valuing child and health as conditions out of which intergenerational economic growth can spring
in 1977 fathers survey of china - argued that there was now great hope that china had found the system designs that would empower a billion people to escape from extreme poverty but ultimately education of the one child generation (its tech for human capabilities) would be pivotal ( parallel 1977 survey looked at the futures of half the world's people ie east of iran)
best chris macrae + 1 240 316 8157 washington DC
IN MORE DETAIL TECH HUMAN EXPONENTIALS LAST CHANCE DECADE?
- we are in midst of unprecedented exponential change (dad from 1960s called death of distance) the tech legacy of von neumann (dad was his biographer due to luckily meeting him in his final years including neumann's scoping of brain science (ie ai and human i) research which he asked yale to continue in his last lecture series). Exponential risks of extinction track to mainly western top-down errors at crossroads of tech over last 60 years (as well as non transparent geonomic mapping of how to reconcile what mainly 10 white empires had monopoly done with machines 1760-1945 and embedded in finance - see eg keynes last chapter of general theory of money); so our 2020s destiny is conditioned by quite simple local time-stamped details but ones that have compounded so that root cause and consequence need exact opposite of academic silos- so I hope there are some simple mapping points we can agree sustainability and chinese anchors in particular are now urgently in the middle of
Both my fatherwww.normanmacrae.netat the economist and I (eg co-authoring 1984 book2025 report,retranslated to 1993 sweden's new vikings) have argued sustainability in early 21st c will depend mostly on how asians as 65% of humans advance and how von neumann (or moores law) 100 times more tech every decade from 1960s is valued by society and business.
My father (awarded Japan's Order of Rising Sun and one time scriptwriter for Prince Charles trips to Japan) had served as teen allied bomber command burma campaign - he therefore had google maps in his head 50 years ahead of most media people, and also believed the world needed peace (dad was only journalist at messina birth of EU ) ; from 1960 his Asian inclusion arguments were almost coincidental to Ezra Vogel who knew much more about Japan=China last 2000 years ( additionally cultural consciousness of silk road's eastern dynamics not golden rule of Western Whites) and peter drucker's view of organisational systems
(none of the 10 people at the economist my father had mentored continued his work past 1993- 2 key friends died early; then the web turned against education-journalism when west coast ventures got taken over by advertising/commerce instead of permitting 2 webs - one hi-trust educational; the other blah blah. sell sell .sex sell. viral trivial and hate politicking)
although i had worked mainly in the far east eg with unilever because of family responsibilities I never got to china until i started bumping into chinese female graduates at un launch of sdgs in 2015- I got in 8 visits to beijing -guided by them around tsinghua, china centre of globalisation, a chinese elder Ying Lowrey who had worked on smes in usa for 25 years but was not jack ma's biographer in 2015 just as his fintech models (taobao not alibaba) were empowering villagers integration into supply chains; there was a fantastic global edutech conference dec 2016 in Tsinghua region (also 3 briefings by Romano Prodi to students) that I attended connected with great womens education hero bangladesh'sfazle abed; Abed spent much of hs last decade hosting events with chinese and other asian ambassadors; unite university graduates around sdg projects the world needed in every community but which had first been massively demonstrated in asia - if you like a version of schwarzman scholars but inclusive of places linking all deepest sustainability goals challenges
and i personally feel learnt a lot from 3 people broadcasting from cgtn you and the 2 ladies liu xin and tian wei (they always seemed to do balanced interviews even in the middle of trump's hatred campaigns), through them I also became a fan of father and daughter Jin at AIIB ; i attended korea's annual general meet 2017 of aiib; it was fascinating watching bankers for 60 countries each coming up with excuses as to why they would not lead on infrastructure investments (even though the supercity economic model depends on that)
Being a diaspora scot and a mathematician borders (managers who maximise externalisation of risks) scare me; especially rise of nationalist ones ; it is pretty clear historically that london trapped most of asia in colomisdation ; then bankrupted by world war 2 rushed to independence without the un or anyone helping redesign top-down systems ; this all crashed into bangladesh the first bottom up collaboration women lab ; ironically on health, food security, education bangladesh and chinese village women empowerment depended on sharing almost every village microfranchise between 1972 and 2000 especially on last mile health networking
in dads editing of 2025 from 1984 he had called for massive human awareness by 2001 of mans biggest risk being discrepancies in incomes and expectations of rich and poor nations; he suggested that eg public broadcast media could host a reality tv end poverty entrepreneur competition just as digital media was scaling to be as impactful as mass media
that didnt happen and pretty much every mess - reactions to 9/11, failure to do ai of epidemics as priority from 2005 instead of autonomous cars, failure to end long-term carbon investments, subprime has been rooted in the west not having either government nor big corporate systems necessary to collaboratively value Asian SDG innovations especially with 5g
nye:csis jan2020 dc the greatest debate help search 2025NOW.COM
I am not smart enough to understand how to thread all the politics now going on but in the event that any cgtn journalist wants to chat especially in dc where we could meet I do not see humans preventing extinction without maximising chinese youth (particularly womens dreams); due to covid we lost plans japan had to relaunch value of female athletes - so this and other ways japan and china and korea might have regained joint consciousness look as if they are being lost- in other words both cultural and education networks (not correctly valued by gdp news headlines) may still be our best chance at asian women empowerment saving us all from extinction but that needs off the record brainstorming as I have no idea what a cgtn journalist is free to cover now that trump has turned 75% of americans into seeing china as the enemy instead of looking at what asian policies of usa hurt humans (eg afghanistan is surely a human wrong caused mostly by usa); a; being a diaspora scot i have this naive idea that we need to celebrate happiness of all peoples an stop using media to spiral hatred across nations but I expect that isnt something an anchor can host generally but for example if an anchor really loves ending covid everywhere then at least in that market she needs to want to help united peoples, transparency of deep data etc
please map how and why - more than 3 in 4 scots earn their livelihoods worldwide not in our homeland- that requires hi-trust as well as hi-tech to try to love all cultures and nature's diversity- until mcdonalds you could use MAC OR MC TO identify our community engaging networks THAT SCALED ROUND STARTING UP THE AGE OF HUMANS AND MACHINES OF GKASGOW UNI 1760 12 3 - and the microfranchises they aimed to sustain locally around each next child born - these days scots hall of fame started in 1760s around adam smith and james watt and 195 years later glasgow engineering BA fazle abed - we hope biden unites his irish community building though cop26 -ditto we hope kamalA values gandhi- public service - but understand if he or she is too busy iN DC 2021 with covid or finding which democrats or republicans or american people speak bottom-up sustainable goals teachers and enrrepreneurs -zoom with chris.macrae@yahoo.co.uk if you are curious - fanily foundation of the economist's norman macrae- explorer of whether 100 times more tehc every decade since 1945 would end poverty or prove orwell's-big brother trumps -fears correct 2025report.com est1984 or the economist's entreprenerialrevolutionstarted up 1976 with italy/franciscan romano prodi
