Developing a More Granular and Equitable Approach to the Learner-Earner Journey. The Role of Badging, Micro-Credentials and Twenty-first Century Skills Within Higher Education to Enable Future Workforce Development

AbstractThis chapter introduces trends within the global skills economy and explores how our learner-earner journeys can best align to these trends. It starts with a discussion of future global workforce skills requirements from higher education courses and discusses emerging Future Skills. It then considers how schools can align with higher education and workforce requirements through a skills-based approach to delivery and how higher education courses can better align to schools, workforce requirements and other potential outputs. The chapter then explores validation models, micro-credentials, and alternative credentials, considering alongside this the role of equity within skills-based education and hiring systems. Finally, it concludes with some key policy and process considerations.