Technology and Education 科技與教育

Lifelong learning 活到老學到老

It is easy to say that people need to keep learning throughout their careers. The practicalities are daunting

人們需要堅持邊工作邊學習，這話說得容易，實際情況卻不盡人意。

WHEN education fails to keep pace with technology, the result is inequality. Without the skills to stay useful as innovations arrive, workers suffer—and if enough of them fall behind, society starts to fall apart. That fundamental insight seized reformers in the Industrial Revolution, heralding state-funded universal schooling. Later, automation in factories and offices called forth a surge in college graduates. The combination of education and innovation, spread over decades, led to a remarkable flowering of prosperity.

當教育跟不上科技的腳步，其結果就是不平等。創新科技層出不窮，技術不再有用，吃虧的是工人——而如果被淘汰的工人達到一定數量，社會將開始四分五裂。在工業革命時代，這種基本觀點抓住了改革者的心，隨之而來的是由國家出資的普及教育的盛行。后來，廠房和辦公室自動化帶來了大學生的激增。幾十年來，教育與創新相結合大行其道，造就了百花齊放的驚人繁榮。

Today robotics and artificial intelligence call for another education revolution. This time, however, working lives are so lengthy and so fast-changing that simply cramming more schooling in at the start is not enough. People must also be able to acquire new skills throughout their careers.

今天，機器人和人工智能呼吁著另一場教育革命。然而這一次，工作年限如此之長，變化發展如此之快，僅憑加大教育力度，已然無濟于事了。人們還必須學會，從工作當中掌握新的技能。

Unfortunately, as our special report in this issue sets out, the lifelong learning that exists today mainly benefits high achievers—and is therefore more likely to exacerbate inequality than diminish it. If 21st-century economies are not to create a massive underclass, policymakers urgently need to work out how to help all their citizens learn while they earn. So far, their ambition has fallen pitifully short.

不幸的是，正如本期特別報告中所談到的，今天，終生學習的存在主要讓高成就人群收益——因此，它更傾向于令不平等加劇，而非消除。如果在21世紀，各國不打算制造出龐大的下層階級，那么，決策者們就需要刻不容緩地研究對策，幫助國民們邊工作邊學習。目前，他們的斗志還遠遠不夠。

Machines or learning?

機器當道，還是加強學習？

The classic model of education—a burst at the start and top-ups through company training—is breaking down. One reason is the need for new, and constantly updated, skills. Manufacturing increasingly calls for brain work rather than metal-bashing (seeBriefing). The share of the American workforce employed in routine office jobs declined from 25.5% to 21% between 1996 and 2015. The single, stable career has gone the way of the Rolodex.

從小拼命學習為主、公司職業培訓為輔的經典教育模式正在坍塌。對不斷更新的新技術的需求，是原因之一。在制造業中，越來越需要的是腦力工作，而非體力工作。從美國的勞動力就業情況看，1996年至2015年間，辦公室日常工作的就業比例從25.5%下降至21%。就像旋轉式名片架那樣，一輩子只干一份穩定工作的情況已經一去不返了。

Pushing people into ever-higher levels of formal education at the start of their lives is not the way to cope. Just 16% of?Americans think that a four-year college degree prepares students very well for a good job. Although a vocational education promises that vital first hire, those with specialised training tend to withdraw from the labour force earlier than those with general education—perhaps because they are less adaptable.

要求人們在年輕時接受越來越高的正規教育，并不是解決問題的方法。僅有16%的美國人認為，通過四年本科學習就可以將學生培養得很好，足以找到好工作。盡管職高教育可以保住至關重要的第一個飯碗，但是同接受了大學綜合教育的人相比，接受技校培訓的人們更傾向于被勞動力市場淘汰——或許是因為他們的適應能力稍遜一籌。

At the same time on-the-job training is shrinking. In America and Britain it has fallen by roughly half in the past two decades. Self-employment is spreading, leaving more people to take responsibility for their own skills. Taking time out later in life to pursue a formal qualification is an option, but it costs money and most colleges are geared towards youngsters.

同時，在職教育也在大不如前。在過去20年中，美國和英國的在職教育銳減近半。自主創業的人越來越多，導致更多的人需要考自己去想辦法，擁有一技之長。在人到中年之后，再花時間去接受正規學位教育不失為一種選擇，但是，這樣做成本很高，而且大部分高校都是針對年輕人的。

The market is innovating to enable workers to learn and earn in new ways. Providers from General Assembly to Pluralsight are building businesses on the promise of boosting and rebooting careers. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have veered away from lectures on Plato or black holes in favour of courses that make their students more employable. At Udacity and Coursera self-improvers pay for cheap, short programmes that bestow “microcredentials” and “nanodegrees” in, say, self-driving cars or the Android operating system. By offering degrees online, universities are making it easier for professionals to burnish their skills. A single master’s programme from Georgia Tech could expand the annual output of computer-science master’s degrees in America by close to 10%.

有了市場創新，勞動者們得以通過新的方式，邊工作邊學習。從聯合國大會到多視角在線教育（Pluralsight），各路教育機構均看好推進和重啟職業發展的培訓前景。大規模開放式網絡課程（MOOCs）不談柏拉圖，不談黑洞，只關注利于其學生找到好工作的課程。利用優達先在線大學（Udacity）和Coursera在線教育平臺，進修者可以廉價的短期課程，獲得各個領域的“小微證書”和“納米學歷”，比如無人車或安卓操作系統等等。通過提供在線學歷，大學為專業人才提供了便捷途徑，讓他們在技術上精益求精。單是佐治亞理工學院的研究生課程，就能夠將美國每年的計算機科學碩士學位產出提高近10%。

Such efforts demonstrate how to interleave careers and learning. But left to its own devices, this nascent market will mainly serve those who already have advantages. It is easier to learn later in life if you enjoyed the classroom first time around: about 80% of the learners on Coursera already have degrees. Online learning requires some IT literacy, yet one in four adults in the OECD has no or limited experience of computers. Skills atrophy unless they are used, but many low-end jobs give workers little chance to practise them.

這些努力例證了，如何去兼顧事業與學業。但是，倘若任其自由發展，這個新生市場將主要服務于優勢人群。如果年輕時就愛讀書，那么日后再學起來也比較容易：在Coursera在線教育平臺上聽課的人中，有80%都已擁有學歷。在線學習要求學習者會用電腦，但是在經合組織成員國中，有四分之一的成年人沒有用過電腦，或不太會用。熟能生巧，可是許多低端工作并未給勞動者提供使用電腦的機會。

Shampoo technician wanted?

招聘洗頭工

If new ways of learning are to help those who need them most, policymakers should be aiming for something far more radical. Because education is a public good whose benefits spill over to all of society, governments have a vital role to play—not just by spending more, but also by spending wisely.

如果新的學習方式是為了幫助最需要學習的人，決策者們應該著眼更加根本的問題。因為教育是一種公共利益，它的好處將惠及全社會，政府的作用至關重要，不是花錢多就好，而是花得對才行。

Lifelong learning starts at school. As a rule, education should not be narrowly vocational. The curriculum needs to teach children how to study and think. A focus on “metacognition” will make them better at picking up skills later in life.

But the biggest change is to make adult learning routinely accessible to all. One way is for citizens to receive vouchers that they can use to pay for training. Singapore has such “individual learning accounts”; it has given money to everyone over 25 to spend on any of 500 approved courses. So far each citizen has only a few hundred dollars, but it is early days.

終生學習開始于學校。作為慣例，教育不應為職業所局限。課程安排得教會學生如何學習，如何思考。關注“元認知”（即人對自己的認知過程的認知），有助于學生們在日后生活中更好地選擇職業技能。但是，終生學習最大的改變，是讓所有成年人都可以每天學習。方法之一就是為公民提供學習券，用來支付培訓費用。在新加坡，有專門的“個人學習賬戶”；國家掏錢給年滿25周歲以上的人，讓他們從500門認證課程中，任意挑選課程學習。目前，每位公民的學習基金僅為幾百美元，不過，這只是個開端而已。

Courses paid for by taxpayers risk being wasteful. But industry can help by steering people towards the skills it wants and by working with MOOCs and colleges to design courses that are relevant. Companies can also encourage their staff to learn. AT&T, a telecoms firm which wants to equip its workforce with digital skills, spends $30m a year on reimbursing employees’ tuition costs. Trade unions can play a useful role as organisers of lifelong learning, particularly for those—workers in small firms or the self-employed—for whom company-provided training is unlikely. A union-run training programme in Britain has support from political parties on the right and left.

納稅人支付的課程也有被浪費的風險。但是，通過指引人們掌握所需技能，或通過與大規模開放式網絡課程及高校合作，設計相關課程，行業也可以起到輔助作用。公司也可以鼓勵員工學習。美國電話電報公司（AT&T）希望讓員工學習數字技術，于是每年花費3000億美元，報銷員工的學費。工會可以發揮作用，組織終生學習，尤其是為小公司員工或自主創業人員組織學習活動，因為他們接觸公司培訓的機會較少。在英國，一個由工會負責的培訓項目得到了左右兩派政黨的雙重支持。

To make all this training worthwhile, governments need to slash the licensing requirements and other barriers that make it hard for newcomers to enter occupations. Rather than asking for 300 hours’ practice to qualify to wash hair, for instance, the state of Tennessee should let hairdressers decide for themselves who is the best person to hire.

要讓所有這些培訓物盡其用，政府需要降低行業準入要求，消除其他障礙，為新人步入職場提供便利。與其要求洗發工必須洗發300小時以上才有執業資格，田納西州還不如讓理發店自行決定誰是最佳雇傭人選。

Not everyone will successfully navigate the shifting jobs market. Those most at risk of technological disruption are men in blue-collar jobs, many of whom reject taking less “masculine” roles in fast-growing areas such as health care. But to keep the numbers of those left behind to a minimum, all adults must have access to flexible, affordable training. The 19th and 20th centuries saw stunning advances in education. That should be the scale of the ambition today.

并非人人都能成功地駕馭轉型中的就業市場。最容易受到技術革新波及的是藍領工人，他們當中，有許多人拒絕接受一些快速發展領域中不太“爺們兒”的工作，比如健康保健行業。但是，為了讓落后勞動力的人數實現最小化，所有成年人都必須有渠道接受靈活的、實惠的培訓。19世紀和20世紀，教育的進步令人嘆為觀止。而今，我們的志向理應不輸當年。

原文出處：經濟學人網站 ?

譯者：linda10030

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