Youth, education and the future of work panel discussion

Emerging Issues in Science and Society (EISS) is a flagship event of the Deakin Science and Society Network. This annual symposium focuses on a key social issue that is examined from multiple disciplinary perspectives. This year the theme was Futures of Work.

One of the sessions was a panel discussion on ‘Youth, Education and the Future of Work: Towards Intergenerational Justice’ organised by REDI’s David Farrugia who is an ARC Future Fellow and a specialist in the areas of youth, citizenship, labour and employment and rural and regional youth. The other speakers were Ruth Bridgstock, an internationally recognised researcher in graduate employability, education for the future of life and work at Swinburne and REDI’s Peter Kelly, Professor of Education whose research focuses on young people, their education, training and employment pathways, and their health and well-being, and panel organiser. Deakin Distinguished Professor Russell Tytler moderated the panel.

This panel presented critical provocations on the educational implications of dominant technical, economic and political ‘future of work’ scenarios. It examined how we might think about young people’s hopes and aspirations in terms of their futures, including in relation to their education, training and employment pathways, and their responses to the challenges of the fourth industrial revolution and the crises of the Anthropocene. The provocations explored the educational dimensions of future of work scenarios to move beyond employability, human capital, and techno-centric approaches that dominate these scenarios. Panellists presented a number of ways to think through/about intergenerational justice concerns such as social inequalities, the role of young people as politically active members of public life, their positioning in relation to impacts of climate change and biodiversity crises, energy transitions, and urban and regional impacts of workforce transformations.

Watch the panel discussion: