How a new programme at a top Canadian university breaks down academic barriers and allows students to pursue their interests across the campus in collaborative and experiential ways. “…as students move through their final year, “courses” will be a series of problems to be solved in cross-disciplinary teams through interaction not one-way monologues by an instructor.”

For Canada to thrive in a time of profound economic and technological change, we need to develop a workforce that is highly mobile and equipped with the skills critical to the jobs of the future.

Some experts posited that we won’t be using credentials in the future; rather, we will be testing for competencies developed through “just-in-time, just-in-place” learning. Hence, there will be a need to design tests to be more democratic and less biased. Tests should not be binary (e.g., do you know the information or not?), but rather, can you demonstrate what you know? We should be testing levels of mastery through immersive collaborative simulations that are AI driven.

Automation will accelerate the shift in required workforce skills we have seen over the past 15 years. Our research finds that the strongest growth in demand will be for technological skills, the smallest category today, which will rise by 55 percent and by 2030 will represent 17 percent of hours worked, up from 11 percent in 2016. This surge will affect demand for basic digital skills as well as advanced technological skills such as programming. Demand for social and emotional skills such as leadership and managing others will rise by 24 percent, to 22 percent of hours worked. Demand for higher cognitive skills will grow moderately overall, but will rise sharply for some of these skills, especially creativity.

More than 25% of Canadian jobs will be heavily disrupted by technology in the coming decade. Fully half will go through a significant overhaul of the skills required.