Dr. Annelies Goger is an economic geographer and fellow at the Brookings Institution. Her recent research has focused on the future of work and how to cultivate human-centered approaches to policy design that drive economic opportunity. She’s been working on the ground with state education and workforce leaders, local workforce development boards, and other nonprofits to help address opportunity gaps in the labor market, such as scaling paid work-based learning pathways that lead to quality jobs. Her work aims to connect dots across labor, education, economic development, business, human services, and public policy to support successful career transitions and ongoing learning and advancement opportunities.

Dr. Goger’s research is an important component of building a learning society, which requires developing infrastructure to work across agencies and programs — considering a person’s journey over a lifetime instead of just looking at a single program outcome. We were fortunate enough to ask her a few questions about the future of education, how to cultivate collaborations that better develop human talent, and the ideal success metrics for a learning society. 

The following Q&A has been lightly edited for clarity:

What does organizing the life course around learning rather than schooling mean to you and your organization?

It means that there are multiple sites where learning takes place, and that, regardless of where it occurs, there are ways to verify and signal what you know or can do to advance in your learning or career. It means the burden is not entirely on the learner to figure out what they need to learn, and that learners are able to demonstrate their level of skill to an employer with ease — without necessarily having a traditional college degree. Lastly, it means building an infrastructure for verifying learning outcomes, both inside and outside the classroom, which would build trust among employers that they are getting the skills a job market candidate claims to have.

What’s one way that schools, employers, and policymakers could better collaborate to develop human talent?

For one, having formal mechanisms to convene multiple employers that are hiring for a specific occupation or profession. That way employers can speak to education and training systems in one voice and streamline their feedback. It empowers employers to collaborate with educators to shape the learning milestones and pathways needed for advancement, and that helps the education system stay aligned with their needs. It also means providing financial aid opportunities for working learners who are not in the classroom full-time, but are instead in a structured, work-based learning program.

Beyond graduation rates and test scores that informed policy analysis in the schooled society, what sorts of data and indicators should we develop to measure progress in the learning society?

We need new infrastructure for assessing qualifications in the workplace. This includes learning that employers have a role in assessing, enforcing clear protocols for determining what level and type of learning it is, as well as how employees can progress to the next level of learning. Incorporating a core foundation of critical thinking in everyone’s learning path is key — as is offering multiple quality pathways into further education and career advancement from there. 

If you could change one thing about how we invest in people’s talent and potential, what would it be and why? People are living and working into their 70s and 80s — and changing careers far more often than previous generations. How should this reshape how we think about education and training?

Money follows the person, not the program. I see a future where multiple forms of learning are valued, recognized, and able to be verified and signaled. This means affordable options — and accessible career information and support at all levels and stages of life. If you follow the person — linking together all of their credentials and achievements from different types of learning — that means it can be included in an analysis of someone’s skills, knowledge, and experience in the labor market. We need to enable individuals to show the full package of their qualifications to potential employers and to further their education.