Sustaining competencies and employability: A fishbone model for engineering education to fit the processes of life

Sustaining competencies and employability: A fishbone model for engineering education to fit the processes of life

Just as breakthroughs in the physical sciences fueled the industrial revolution, we are now in the early stages of a social revolution fueled by breakthroughs in the
human sciences. This paper builds on a paper presented at SEAAIR 2017 that discussed new understandings from the Science of Learning. The current paper combines emergent knowledge from neurobiology with social and cultural timelines to propose a nuanced and situated 'fishbone' model of human life processes. From conception to erminal illness, the changes in different parts of the brain are not uniform. Different parts of the brain perform different functions that, when scaffolded, deliver higher level skills. For example, understanding tonal languages requires a strong sense of differences in pitch, a skill most easily developed in early childhood. The paper then explores the implications of this model for delivering sustaining competencies and employability to our citizens.
Furthermore, education is currently designed as a push method – education is largely pushed out in early life, to meet the demands of a whole lifetime. The paper
proposes that, to be sustaining, the education industry needs to be re-engineered to a pull approach. Advances in the Science of Learning allow young citizens to be
effectively taught to be independent learners. Independent learners have the ability to pull in (to learn independently) the knowledge and skills Just In Time (JIT) to be relevant to their life-stage. ASEAN @ 50, led by its higher education sector, has the ability to deliver sustaining competencies and employability to its citizens.

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