Monday 2 July 2012

Using scenarios to explore possible futures for CET in Singapore

The Adult Learning in the Digital Age programme aims to develop technology that will support people working in continuing education and training (CET) over the next ten years. But for that to succeed, we need to know what sort of context we will be working in. What will be important? What will be different? How will professional practice have to change? Developing technologies that make a genuine contribution to adult learning will depend on finding answers to these questions.

CET is a large and complex domain, with many different factors interacting with each other on different levels - policy direction, classroom practice, economic conditions, workplace trends, individual motivations and so on. Its complexity makes its future direction uncertain. One technique that strategists and policy planners around the world use to understand uncertain and complex topics better is scenario planning. Scenarios are narratives of alternative future conditions in which the decisions made in the present might unfold. They're used for a variety of purposes in a number of different contexts, but in general they are used to re-examine assumptions that are held about the way things might turn out, to explore the different contexts in which people will be operating in years to come, and to ask "what if..?"

To help us imagine better the kinds of futures CET professionals might be operating in, we created four scenarios for CET in Singapore set ten years from now. A series of interviews and workshops with CET stakeholders, alongside a process of desk research, examined major drivers of change within the CET sector, paying attention to the impact they would have if they continued unchecked, and the degree to which the outcome of each is uncertain. The outcomes of this process were used as the basis of a development workshop to create four alternative future contexts for CET: iLearn, New Old, Bo Pian and Maelstrom.

iLearn describes a world in which adult learning is provided by the free market, and learners make their own way through a diverse range of offerings. New Old imagines the kind of comprehensive and personalised learning that could be available through a state-run CET service. In Maelstrom, learners, employers and governments alike are all doing their best to respond to change in a disconnected and incoherent world. And in Bo Pian, learners use their own time to become qualified in sector-wide mandatory certificates. Each of these worlds presents learners, educators and learning providers with particular challenges and opportunities. Each of them feature mobile and networked technologies in a pervasive social context. And each of them draw on features of the present and trends currently shaping the adult learning experience today.

These scenarios on their own don't tell us what the specific experiences of CET professionals might be. For that, we need the contribution and insight of people currently working in the sector. What would it be like to be a practitioner in the world of iLearn? How would you manage a CET centre in New Old? What changes would Maelstrom require in the role of curriculum developer? What would the experience be for learners in Bo Pian? Over the next few weeks we're looking for opportunities to connect with the CET community and learn more about what the impacts of each scenario would be on professional lives, in order to build an awareness of the issues the ALDA programme will need to address.

One opportunity to collaborate with us in this process is our ALS workshop on the afternoon of Friday 6th July (concurrent session 4B, 14:20 - 15:00. If you're interested in the way current trends might play out, or in exploring the ways in which change might impact on your professional identity, the workshop will provide a chance to discuss these with other members of the CET community. Whatever your connection to CET in Singapore, your perspective on the future challenges that adult learning will face over the next ten years would be hugely valuable, and make a real contribution to the ALDA programme.

More information on the programme and its aims can be found at http://adulteducation.sg/alda/. Hope to see you at the workshop!

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