Growing up as a young boy, my parents told me to work hard at school, go to university, get a good job, and I will be able to retire at 65 years old. They had all the best intentions for me, and based on the knowledge and worldview they had at the time, gave me the advice they thought was best for me.

Maybe your parents told you the same thing

• Get a degree so you can “fall back on it” if things don’t work out
• Pick a career (while you’re at school and know nothing)

Looking back on it now and the way the world has changed, as well as looking around at some of my fellow schoolmates that followed similar advice and how their lives have ended up, I see how wrong that advice was, and I’m so glad that I never followed it.

The world today is filled with uncertainty and the current education system cannot guarantee you anything beyond that if you study well you’ll get a certificate at the end of your course.

So what is it that all of us actually want? Well, we want to be loved, we want to do something worthwhile with our lives, we want to feel good about ourselves and we want security in life.

Why do we put ourselves through the agony and fear of planning the perfect future, and setting ourselves up for failure from the start? Is the prevailing global culture still mired in the last century’s thinking?

What we need to ask…is getting a good education a guarantee you will get all of these things? The answer is most definitely…NO!

Blockchain – the path to opening our minds

The best outcome of blockchain, Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies to date, in my opinion, is that it has turned the world upside down, and forced people to rethink old paradigms, challenging the status quo.

Universities and colleges are the master salesmen of peddling degrees that have no guarantee of future employment and success in life, creating very well qualified managers, doctors, bankers, lawyers et cetera that end up being unemployed and disillusioned by the promise they were sold.

The education-employer partnership that served humanity so well in the latter part of the last century is a relationship that is broken and cannot be reconciled in its current form.

No prospect of guaranteed employment

Here is the problem:

1. Traditionally universities and colleges core focus areas are in educating students in areas with a diminishing job base rather than in areas with an exhilarating opportunity base
2. Employers need tech and Digital savvy employees to help them develop the companies of the future, and instead, are offered employees that are trained in skills better suited to the jobs of the last century.

This is creating a growing divide between the education – employment partnership, creating fear and uncertainty for young people starting out in their careers without the prospects of guaranteed employment.

What we need to ask is if blockchain can help address the problems faced by the education – employer partnership or are we heading down a one way street of disillusionment for young people?

So the question is:

Is our current education system set up to produce specialists that were needed in the last century rather than people that are educated for jobs in the future?

Over the last 7 years of homeschooling our children, we have seen how the job market has shifted dramatically with a whole new plethora of opportunities opening up…new career choices, new ways of working, new thought processes.

Some opportunities available today were not as available 3-5 years ago. This is an exciting opportunity for students.

With the advent of blockchain and cryptocurrencies, the Internet of things, AI, and machine learning, young people suddenly have a myriad of new opportunities to choose from.

The truth of the matter, in fact, is that the jobs that young people will be involved in haven’t been fully scoped out yet.

So how do you prepare yourself for an exciting future filled with opportunity when mainstream education media and popular thinking is filled with promises of jobs that are in all likelihood antiquated – and if you follow them, will lead you down an overcrowded path into a dead-end, one in which you would have to do a U-turn, re-study and find a career that is more suited to the economic and global environment that we live in.

Good advice today would be

• Keep learning while you work
• Don’t be scared to try different jobs
• Do something you are passionate about and where you feel you can make a difference

Blockchain = Change = Keep learning = Your bright future

What’s your take on this formula?

Take a look at the many career possibilities of engaging with the English Forward community.

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