{"id":37867,"date":"2017-02-15T11:31:43","date_gmt":"2017-02-15T19:31:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/world.edu\/?p=37867"},"modified":"2017-02-15T11:31:43","modified_gmt":"2017-02-15T19:31:43","slug":"design-thinking-can-prepare-graduates-real-working-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/design-thinking-can-prepare-graduates-real-working-world\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cDesign thinking\u201d can prepare graduates for the real working world"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Design-thinking\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At first glance, it looks as though the group of young adults is building Lego. But these are actually students at the University of Cape Town\u2019s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design Thinking<\/a>, and they\u2019re using the colourful blocks to design a prototype. It represents policy reform ideas around transitioning from informal to formal economies. It\u2019s a complex system represented with very basic materials.<\/p>\n

This is design thinking in action: human-centred, problem solving activities that ground design thinking in practice. It helps students to understand and innovatively solve challenges.<\/p>\n

Design thinking can be used very successfully as an academic programme that goes beyond traditional university practices. It allows universities to prepare a more resilient, adaptive student cohort. These graduates are more competent to enter economies that are constantly changing. This is particularly important when higher education institutions are training students for jobs that might not yet exist or that might have changed or become redundant by the time they graduate.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re living in a time of rapid transformation in terms of what\u2019s required for a country\u2019s workforce.<\/p>\n

As the World Economic Form has put it<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2026five years from now, over one third of skills (35%) that are considered important in today\u2019s workforce will have changed.<\/em><\/p>\n

Design thinking programmes that nurture both creativity and critical thinking around complex challenges offer students an opportunity to develop core skills for the workplace of the fourth industrial revolution<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Useful tools<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a major skills mismatch<\/a> between graduates and the workplace in South Africa. A 2016 report identified three areas<\/a> in which these mismatches exist: demand mismatch (skills gap between existing education and emergent job needs); education supply (producing fewer graduates than a field requires), and qualification-job (people moving into fields different from what they have studied for).<\/p>\n

Higher education institutions need to improve their academic responsiveness to increasingly complex labour market needs and industry requirements. They must also develop graduates with more entrepreneurial mindsets. Design thinking<\/a> is a very new addition to the country\u2019s higher education landscape. But early indications suggest that it might provide some of the tools to help universities in these tasks.<\/p>\n

I lecture and manage the academic programmes at the Hasso Plattner Institute, which we call \u201cthe d-school\u201d. It is only the third Institute of Design Thinking in the world and, having opened its doors in 2016, is the newest. The others are at Stanford University in the US and Germany\u2019s Potsdam University. Both are more than a decade old and have brought academic rigour to design-led innovation practice. They also make training programmes in design thinking available to academic scholars and leaders in the private and public sectors. Our aim at UCT\u2019s d-school is to better prepare students for a changing workplace by nurturing design thinking mindsets.<\/p>\n

Different approaches to education<\/strong><\/p>\n

Design thinking embodies three core approaches to education for a changing workplace:<\/p>\n