Education of the Future : Learnings and Experiences from Offering Education to Industry Professionals

• Digitalization is forcing the industry to rethink current practices in all business domains, pushing for a digital transformation of business and operations at a high rate and, thus, paving the way for new business models and making others redundant. For small and medium-sized companies (SME), in particular, it is an enormous challenge to keep up with the pace of technological development. Several initiatives have argued the industry’s need for continuous digitalization, innovation, transformation ability, and future skills and competencies development. However, the advancement of the Swedish industry in this area has been uneven, where larger organizations have begun their digital transformation journey to some extent, but SMEs risk falling behind. In addition to the technological transformation, the challenges regarding the industries’ skills supply need to be solved, where a workforce with the right competencies, knowledge, and skill sets are equally, if not more, important for remaining competitive. One of the key elements to face these challenges in the companies will be to recruit knowledgeable employees or re-skill the existing ones. Efficient access to relevant knowledge and skills is still a major concern for companies that will surely affect their competitiveness for a long time to come. This paper elaborates on the opportunities and challenges that Swedish universities face in the context of lifelong learning and education for industry professionals. The paper presents results and experiences gained from a lifelong learning project for industry professionals at the University of Skövde in collaboration with ten industry partners. The results from the project show that in addition to pedagogical methods, current structures and policies within academia need to be further developed to effectively serve industry professionals. The paper also presents a concept of education for industry professionals in the lifelong learning context based on the results and experience gained from the project.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Pedagogik (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Pedagogy (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Lärande (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Learning (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap -- Systemvetenskap, informationssystem och informatik med samhällsvetenskaplig inriktning (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications -- Information Systems, Social aspects (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Produktionsteknik, arbetsvetenskap och ergonomi (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Production Engineering, Human Work Science and Ergonomics (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik -- Robotteknik och automation (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering -- Robotics (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik -- Reglerteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering -- Control Engineering (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Education

Lifelong Learning

Digital Transformation

Industry professionals

Production and Automation Engineering

Produktion och automatiseringsteknik

Interaction Lab (ILAB)

Interaction Lab (ILAB)

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)