OVERVIEW
The ASEAN region is widely seen as the next global economic powerhouse with the third largest workforce in the world. However, it is also widely believed that the 10 countries in the newly created ASEAN Economic Community can only prosper if there is a significant upgrading of workforce skills.
Experts in corporate strategies, skills and the future of work will discuss how the global auction for jobs (both high skilled and low skilled) presents different opportunities and challenges to ASEAN member countries. Therefore, is the human capital model of development destined to disappoint? What will this mean for the role of education, skills and the future of work?
MEET THE PANELISTS
Professor Phillip Brown Distinguished Research Professor, Cardiff University
Philip Brown is a Distinguished Research Professor in the Cardiff School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University. He worked in the auto industry in Cowley, Oxford in the early 1970s, before training as a teacher. His academic career took him to Cambridge University and the University of Kent at Canterbury before joining Cardiff University in 1997. Since the late 1990s he has been studying economic globalisation and the new division of labour including path-breaking comparative studies that fundamentally challenged Western policy debates around skill formation, social justice and the knowledge economy. His publications include 17 books and over 100 academic articles and reports. Five of his books are published by Oxford University Press including The Global Auction: The Broken Promises of Education, Jobs and Incomes (Brown, P., Lauder, H. and Ashton, D.), and High Skills: Globalization, Competitiveness and Skill Formation (Brown, P., Green, A., and Lauder, H.). Phil has given keynote presentations in over twenty countries including the World Bank in Washington, International Labour Office in Geneva, and European Commission in Brussels. He has also given several high profile presentations in Singapore where he is a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Skills, Performance and Productivity Research, Institute for Adult Learning/Workforce Development Agency.
Professor Hugh Lauder Professor of Education and Political Economy, University of Bath
Hugh Lauder is Professor of Education and Political Economy at the University of Bath (1996-to present) and Director, The Institute for Policy Research. He has studied at The University of London, (The Institute of Education), and gained his Doctorate at the University of Canterbury
(NZ). He was formerly Dean of Education at Victoria University of Wellington. He specialises in the relationship of education to the economy and has for over 15 years worked on national skill strategies and more recently on the global skill strategies of Transnational Companies and their implications for graduate recruitment. He is also working with Phillip Brown on the implications for developing economies of changes in global labour markets, especially in relation to the global value chains that are linked to Transnational Companies. Here the question is what kinds of strategies do developing economies need with respect to education and skill to meet the demands of global value chains.
Dr. Gog Soon Joo Group Director, Training Partners Group and Chief Research Officer, Singapore Workforce Development Agency
Soon-Joo Gog is Group Director Training Partners Group and Chief Research Officer at the Singapore Workforce Development Agency (WDA). She worked in the hospitality industry in Singapore and Beijing prior to her career in education. She started her academic career at the Singapore Temasek Polytechnic. She joined WDA in 2003 where she pioneered the Singapore Workforce Skills Qualifications system and set up the quality assurance system. She was the Executive Director of the Institute for Adult Learning, Singapore from 2010 to 2014 where she established IAL as the thought-leader in learning practice and research in skills, learning and innovation. Soon-Joo’s research interests are political economy of skill; skills policy; skills formation systems; job quality; and institutional logics. She gained her doctorate in education at the Institute of Education, University of London and National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University.
This free lecture is presented by the HEAD Foundation, a Singapore-based think tank focused on education and leadership for development in Asia.
