Why Everybody Should Embrace the World’s Second Language - Coding

Why Everybody Should Embrace the World’s Second Language – Coding

English is the de-facto language of business – but a new language is here to change how we work – and think

21st Century Skills. Fourth industrial revolution, Jobs of Tomorrow by Laura Martin, Senior Business Analyst

It is the year 2020, and the world is not the same as it used to be. A villager is able to receive mobile money without a smartphone; drones are able to deliver medical supplies including blood to some of the least accessible parts of the world and a farmer can track crop prices online. The fourth industrial revolution (4IR), characterized by rapid breakthroughs in technology related fields, has been brought into even sharper focus this year, and digital sceptics are forced to confront the shift to digital with the COVID crisis acting as a catalyst.

“The only constant in life is change”- Heraclitus

This world of constant change promises disruption across all sectors, requiring more complex skills and retraining of the workforce. More than 130 million new jobs will likely emerge across the globe before 2030 (Source: WEF Future of Jobs Report). To understand how serious the future skills gap will be, we only need to look at what global CEOs are saying. PwC Research from October 2018 surveyed 1,378 chief executives from more than 90 territories on the availability of 4IR skills: 79% of global CEOs said that they are concerned about the availability of key skills, and in Africa that figure jumps to 87%. Of even greater concern is that 45% are ‘extremely concerned’.
So, what are the key skills of the future? According to LEK/IFC study Digital Skills in Sub-Saharan Africa, different skill sets will be needed, with socio-behavioral and digital capabilities the most critical for success. Employers, according to the study, consider digital skills among the top seven required for the future workforce.
But to create the kind of education ecosystem that equips graduates with the behavioral and digital skills they (and industry) need is less straightforward: it requires a paradigm shift in attitude towards curricula, teaching pedagogies and how to provide students with the highly flexible, mobile mindset that they will need in the 21st century workplace.
We are already seeing a shift in education, with traditional models losing popularity. For example, MBAs are losing momentum: the highest ranked business schools in the U.S. reported significant falls in applications – 6% less total applicants last year in the top ten business schools combined (Source: Forbes). Alternative academic models with a focus on skills training that demonstrate newly acquired competencies, rather than focusing on grades and credits, are gaining momentum. The skills that these courses deliver offer a pathway to highly in-demand jobs – more so than old fashioned ‘credentials. Examples include Le Wagon, which has been ranked as the #1 coding school in the world for three years. Its nine-week program helps students reinvent their careers through intensive, immersive bootcamps, equipping them with the digital skills they need to find a job as a developer or data scientists, to become a freelancer, or to launch a tech start-up, etc.

“Everybody in the country should learn how to program a computer… because it teaches you how to think” – Steve Jobs

And, students of these new generation institutes learn so much more than technical skills. Computer languages and concepts will evolve and change. Apps will come and go. But the logic behind knowing how to code will transcend. There are challenges to overcome, and the agile and technical minds will be the ones who will solve the world’s greatest problems. With hands-on learning journeys, students also develop the 4Cs of the 21st century skills as described by the World Economic Forum, critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication.
These innovative academic models place great emphasis on collaboration and communication using project-based peer-to-peer learning. At Le Wagon for example, students are required to code in pairs with a different classmate every day and are encouraged to ask classmates or to search the internet to solve their issues before asking teachers. Some schools, such as the 42 Network, have taken this new learning process a step further, basing all of their teaching on peer-to-peer learning with no lecturers whatsoever; fostering collective intelligence and resilience.
To build scale in these critical coding and 4IR skills across Africa also requires an alternative academic model for higher education that is specifically designed to fill the skills gap. Africa’s first and largest pan-African network of higher education institutions, Honoris United Universities, has pioneered such a learning environment. The teaching pedagogies cultivated by the faculty, curricula, and philosophical focus is sharply focused on employability, underpinned by a specialist ‘employability unit’ the iLeadLab – a ‘Collective Lab’ designed for innovation, a digitally advanced medical simulation center, the SMARTiLab Innovation Laboratory and the LPRI Research Laboratory.
The Honoris network is also forming new partnerships within the coding space as its commitment to equipping students with employability skills evolves. This growing ecosystem of digitally focused higher education reflects the importance of a region-wide approach to equipping students with both 21st century skills and an employability roadmap. This is not just important in the pursuit of employment opportunities in a region with high levels of unemployment: it is fundamental for sustainable growth across in Africa in the coming decades.
By Laura Martin, Senior Business Analyst