ProjectOI Podcast

In this episode, Dr. Sofia Barbosa Bouças speaks about the experiences of Higher Education (HE) professionals and academics during the 2020-21 pandemic and the sudden and giant shifts they had to take to continue teaching and supporting students. She also speaks about how valuable technological provisions have been to ride the wave of uncertainty but also stresses that there continues to be a need for physical interactions between students and academics. This episode highlights the importance and immediate need of embedding transferable skills into the curriculum to improve students’ employability today and in the post-pandemic era. This episode ends with a deep look into the future of employability in a post-pandemic job market for Higher Education students.

Sofia is an academic and educationist who is currently the Undergraduate Programmes Lead in the Division of Psychology and a Senior Lecturer at Brunel University London. She is also a fellow and steering committee member of the Brunel Academy for Transformation of Teaching and a pioneer in developing methods to incorporate transferable skills and employability skills into the traditional HE curriculum. Previously Sofia has worked at the University of Reading, Oxford Brookes University, and the University of Southampton.

“My main concern is that we should always bear in mind who we have as our students, their background, where they come from and that one thing does not fit all….” – Dr. Sofia Barbosa Bouças

“There is room for us. There needs to be interaction with our students despite currently providing all teaching digitally.” – Dr. Sofia Barbosa Bouças

“Today we are training students in UN camps in Iraq and Foundation run schools in Lebanon, and what we have found is that for them pre-recorded video lessons don’t work and digital interaction with trainers is key.” – Dev Aditya

 In this podcast you will listen about:

• Get to know Sofia and an initial chat about Sofia’s personal experience during the pandemic.
• Sofia speaks about her experience of managing a very large cohort of students, who were about to end an academic year normally as any other academic year, but were suddenly put in a state of absolute uncertainty weeks before their exams and assessments.
• The steps she and her colleagues took to reassure students at that time, set up processes for the months ahead, adapting a teaching plan at scale, and how working remotely actually resulted in more work than before.
• Exploring platforms, technological and procedural solutions to meet this uncertainty and bring innovative methods of teaching delivery.
• Unique initiatives like narrowing the awarding gaps and maintaining such policies despite the sudden changes brought by the pandemic.
• Newmarket trends like companies working with big universities to even start completely digital online degrees.
• Despite the heightened use of technology and its uses, there is still room for the coexistence of more traditional methods of teaching, especially for specialist subjects.
• Pre-recorded video lessons and content alone cannot satisfy teaching and learning needs.
• Skills need to be taught for students when they enter Higher Education, especially for global/international students, and similarly each year of study you need to be taught different skills to match the needs of that level of HE.
• Academic skills need to include transferable skills that graduate employers are looking for and these are different from purely academic learning.
• Most students may not get into employment directly linked to their core academic degrees and hence even assessments need to prepare students for graduate world expectations.
• Transferable skills and employability-specific skills training need to be tailored according to student needs based on their backgrounds, needs, and al

In this episode, Dr. Nadia Al-Aboody speaks about her experiences of returning to Iraq as an academic after completing her Ph.D. from the United Kingdom (UK). She speaks about the shortcomings of education in Iraq with a focus on Information Communication Technology (ICT). There is a considerable discussion about the new steps being taken by the Government of Iraq to improve the country’s education system and areas of development. Nadia speaks to us about how she set up coding clubs in Iraq and how it is revolutionising Iraq in two ways – 1) removing the stigma around women who can code and 2) work in technology and empowering the country’s human capital by teaching children to code from a very young age. There is a candid discussion about the role technology can play in education and training and the episode ends on a reflective note on how proper education can take any nation to success.

Nadia is an academic in the field of Computer Science and a female pioneer in this space in Iraq. Currently, she is the Head of the Computer System Department of Amara Technical Institute and Head of the E-Learning committee at Southern Technical University, Iraq. Nadia is a strong advocate for women’s empowerment and is an educationist who is championing the introduction of modern employability skills and ICT training into the Iraqi education system. She has introduced coding clubs for children in Iraq which are being run primarily by female trainers.

“For the past few months, we have been trying with the Rasberry Pi Foundation to propose a curriculum in primary schools based on employability skills needed today…This is something our government needs to consider…and as a mother, I see the difference in my own children from such skills development.” — Dr. Nadia Al-Aboody

“I think world over, even in the West, we do not have education right.” — Dev Aditya

“If you want to build nations you need to provide a good education system, and if you want to destroy a nation you just take out the education.” – Dr. Nadia Al-Aboody

In this podcast you will listen about:

• Get to know Nadia, her time when she was completing her Ph.D. in the UK, and her return to Iraq.
• Nadia speaks about the good practices she took back to Iraq from the UK education system.
• The difficulty of shifting perspectives in the current academic circle in Iraq and what needs to be done.
• A deep discussion about the current skill levels of students in Iraq – the areas that are good and areas that need improvement.
• The beginning of the introduction of life skills and transferable skills into the Iraqi education system along with some modern computer training, and how a blanket system will be beneficial.
• The increase of private training in Iraq and how it is directing the Iraqi education system in the right direction.
• The severe gap between the needs of employers and the job market and what is being taught in Iraq; how an immediate review especially from employability-oriented subject insertion in the curriculum is needed.
• The lack of transferable and employability skills training at school levels remains a challenge for upskilling the student population in Iraq.
• Nadia spoke about how she was able to get support from international foundations like the Rasberry Pi Foundation.
• The disparity between education levels in different parts of Iraq and the need for a uniform and blanket system.
• In ICT there is a need to update the curriculum and incorporate modern programming languages universally across Iraq.
• Nadia speaks about starting the coding clubs in Iraq, how it is mostly run by female trainers and how it can change the skills landscape in Iraq.
• There is no point in just improving the curriculum if you do not upskill teachers who teach it to students.
• How the futu

In this episode, Bian Li speaks about her own experience and the sector-wide boom of EdTech during the pandemic and its potential long-term effects. She also speaks about the rapid and global changes to education and training, and on the overall perception of learning. There is mention of the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other technologies to improve the facilitation of learning and the exponential growth towards such changes in the world today. The episode ends with a deep discussion about the future of skills and how hyper customisation of learning will become the norm in the not-too-distant future.

Bian, a REX Karmaveer Global Fellow and 40 under 40, is the founder of The Hungry Lab; a global online platform empowering the next generation of innovators and problem-solvers through its online ReSchool for the Future, Social Enterprise incubator and ReThink Tank to harness emerging tech for good. She is a futurist, an authority in the SDG space, and regularly comments on the intersection of technology and education.

“The root cause (in the misalignment of education today) is that parents are hurting, but they do not know how to do anything different as they are in a flawed economic and societal system .” — Bian Li

“And suddenly even grandparents in India started seeing digital education as something that was valuable for their grandson or grandnephew.” – Dev Aditya

“We need to open our minds, and open ourselves to new ways of understanding and viewing the world. It is not only ahead exercise but a heart exercise.” — Bian Li

In this podcast you will listen to:

• Get to know Bian, her time when she was stuck in India for 7 months due to the pandemic, and her extensive background as a futurist in the reskilling and upskilling space.
• The growth and sudden acceptance of EdTech due, despite being phenomenal, we are still in the early stages.
• The future of skills and learning and where it is going.
• What are the skills of tomorrow, the right skills, and ways of learning that match the jobs of tomorrow?
• The loss of human creativity resulting from archaic teaching and learning systems that exist today and the immediate need to replace such systems.
• How COVID-19 has accelerated the adoption of EdTEch especially in South Asian countries.
• For parents, they need to ask questions and learn to learn.
• Bian’s acronym of STEAM and its importance in the future of human upskilling and ability.
• The use of AI in reskilling and upskilling learners and how it can free up human beings by giving us the freedom from mundane tasks to allow us to become more creative.
• Bian introduces listeners to her ice-berg metaphor, about the future of education and skills development, and about 'Learning 4.0'.
• How everyone having and showcasing their own expertise is a natural future of work.
• How the future is about hyper customisation of learning and content.

‘ProjectOI Podcast’ is registered under Otermans Institute and encourages credible discussions on the future of education, training, and human ability. The views presented by guests are their own and do not represent the views of the registered organisation or its members. New episodes are out on www.oiedu.co.uk and other streaming channels every fortnight.