New Pathways to Success: The Swiss Apprenticeship Model

I am on the record as having an education crush on Quebec's Cegep system. Read the previous post (it's short) to get a sense of what Cegep is all about and why I love it so. Cegep is great, but completely unattainable for the U.S., which loves its college machine (perhaps a bit too much). Still, a guy can dream, can't he?

A glimmer of hope that U.S. school districts could create something really great comes from The 74: Robots, Inequality, Apprenticeships: If America Is to Usher In an ‘Age of Agility’ in Education, Experts Say We Must Talk Less About Schools — and More About Students. First, the problem:

... The traditional high-school-to-college continuum leaves too many talented people behind. About a third of Americans have a four-year college degree, yet an estimated 6.3 million jobs are going unfilled for lack of skilled candidates.

Yep. That describes the problem pretty well. The U.S. system has too many academic dead ends that leave tons of students feeling like failures and unprepared for the workforce. If only we could create a system that helps more students really prepare for careers while exploring possibilities. If only this system could have ramps that allow students to move from career preparation to college if they want to.

It turns out that the Swiss have a solution:

After nine years of compulsory schooling, ... every Swiss student has the opportunity to opt in to a national system of apprenticeships. 70 percent of Swiss teens participate, choosing one of 250 career pathways. They continue to go to high school part time, and many later earn a college degree.

OK, so you create fewer dead ends and help prepare students for careers, but how would it be paid for?

Swiss businesses contribute 60 percent of the $6 billion annual cost .... Business sees the expense as an investment, not an act of corporate responsibility.

So, Swiss businesses are seeing that supporting a program like this is an investment. I need to take some time to dig into this more, but I am pretty sure that I have a new education crush. Cegep is still dreamy, but so is Switzerland's apprenticeship program.

A New Adventure: Docent Learning

As of today, I am completely self-employed!

I've got an incorporated LLC, business cards, a website, and as of today, I am no longer an employee of any other company. My business has a couple contracts that should keep me going at least through July, so now I need to focus on my work and my business.

Yeah, it's a little scary, but this is something I've wanted to do for a long time. As the sole proprietor and employee of Docent Learning LLC, I am focusing on educational consulting and curriculum development. Right now, I am working on a high school computer science course and several high school math modules to support the new PISA 2021.

Now that I am Docent Learning, I will endeavor to post to this blog and get active on Twitter (I am @DocentLearning). Stay tuned and wish me luck.

Education and Business Revisited

A while ago, I wrote Education and Business: A Tough Combo.

What's changed since then? Not much, actually. I think that technology and business are still a tough combo.

About all that's changed is how much I've seen. A few years ago, I had an epiphany about the nature of customers and users. Most people probably figured it out way before I did, but....

Few (hopefully none) of Alpo's users are customers and vice versa. Similarly, edtech companies need to think hard about who their customers are (who will write the checks) and who their users are. For many edtech companies, the customers are schools or school districts, while the users are teachers and/or students. Every company needs to think hard about these groups and design a product and messaging that resonate with each.

Snehal Patel (whom I met while he was selling Sokikom) seems to have learned this as well. What I Learned From Building and Exiting 2 Companies (Part 1) seems pretty on-point. He's been pretty darn successful at this difficult intersection of business and education, and it's great that he's willing to share his lessons learned.

Education and Business: A Tough Combo

Achival's Blog brings us Why Education Startups Don't Succeed. It's an interesting read, especially for anyone who has been involved in the online education business over the past decade or so. The entire piece is worthwhile, but I particularly like the list at the end. The first bullet is pretty sobering:

Don’t believe that building a better product will make you successful. Delivering something for cheaper will. Even if that cheaper thing is lower quality. This is usually repugnant to most well-educated entrepreneurs.

Ugh. Yeah, that is a bit repugnant. I want to believe that a better product will succeed, but I know that having a great product is neither necessary nor sufficient. I know this because I have seen some companies get paid for pretty poor products while companies with brilliant people and products languish. As long as a product is cheap and has the perception of filling a need (thanks to good marketing copy and/or a well-spoken champion), it has a chance to succeed.

Am I a little bitter when I see someone cash in on a crappy product? Yes, I am. I respect their chutzpah, but am disappointed in a system that can't identify, use, and reward quality.

TechCrunch says that Education Technology Startups Raised Over Half a Billion Dollars in Q1 of 2014. People are still trying to build better educational mousetraps. I respect the effort and hope the good ones succeed.

Over the last couple decades, I have worked for a handful of small companies trying to change education and/or training. Some have seen some success, while others faded away or imploded. I am quixotic enough to keep trying, but realistic enough to know that developing some amazing solution won't guarantee success.