From daemon Mon Jun 12 15:20 EDT 1995 Received: from ace.nche.edu (ace.nche.edu [192.111.222.112]) by town.hall.org (8.6.12/941123.08ccg) with SMTP id PAA06495 for ; Mon, 12 Jun 1995 15:19:26 -0400 Message-ID: Date: 12 Jun 1995 15:22:29 U From: "Florence Harvey" Subject: Questions for the 21st cent To: "Joint Economic Committe" X-Mailer: Mail*Link SMTP-QM 3.0.2 Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1421 Status: RO Subject: Time:2:59 PM OFFICE MEMO Questions for the 21st century? Date:6/12/95 A major un-examined concern about the workforce for the 21st century is that: o the 21st century is less than 5 years away o the majority of the current workforce is 40 years old so a amjority of the workforce for the first quarter of the 21st century is already working o many American workers are undereducated (at this time 45 million adults over the age of 25 don't have a high school diploma) o and even now the workplace is demanding higher level basic skills and an ability to learn what is needed to adjust to accelerated change. Unless we make a commitment to education of adults over the age of 25 at the same time as we attempt to change schools to improve the entry level workforce the majority of the employees will continue to be undereducated for the next 25 years. Question: How can we best provide education to a transitional and existing (middle aged) workforce so they will have both the basic skills necessary to continuously learn and the self-confidence in themselves as self-directed learners to continue to learn? Learning to learn will be the necessary skill in the future since change is going to happen at an even faster rate in the 21st century and older adults will need to be willing to learn something new, far more frequently.