Shared value can prevent an education crisis

Why? Because a key message is about the concept of shared value. 

If businesses recognise the possibility of shared value in the educational sector, they will be able to become a key contributor to the improvement of educational services in a way that benefits students, teachers, and countries alike. 

Wouldn’t it be good for students and teachers to get professional perspectives when tackling a particular subject? Wouldn’t it be useful for businesses to teach students about the skills they, as employers, are looking for? Wouldn’t it be great for countries to see that their graduates can find jobs because they have been well prepared to rise up to the challenges of work and careers since their educational years?

If the answers are “Yes”, why wait?

The more companies jump on this bandwagon, the greater the impact will be.

Today, several innovative firms have already explored the concept Creating Shared Value (CSV). Shared value here refers to a new role for businesses to play in helping overcome the global education crisis.

CSV in Education requires the corporate management strategy that creates measurable business value by identifying and addressing social problems concerning their business. Such an approach can create opportunities for companies to work jointly with government and civil society in refining education reform.

Through the concept of shared value, these companies are finding new ways to grow revenue and increase productivity by helping to raise levels of student and workforce achievement, as reported by the Harvard Business Review (January 2011).

As a university lecturer, I have discussed at length with various companies during job fairs concerning how they can play a role in education and benefit from getting qualified students as their employees. From the discussions, I have found out that many companies have energetically made significant efforts in improving educational outcomes – such as by helping with teachers’ training.

Alarmed by worsening education crises, many companies have also embarked on education-related CSV efforts. Among them are Pearson, Lego, Intel, and Ford Foundation. They have explored innovative ways to improve education and push a boundless transformation. The combination of CSV and Public Private Partnership can be a change agent and win-win strategy to 

tackle unsolved problems in the education system.

A report on “How Companies Are Creating Shared Value In Education” says Intel has implemented a company-wide effort to transform science, technology, engineering and maths education (STEM) that better connects education to employment while simultaneously increasing the company’s revenue.

Discovery Education and Lego has also engaged teachers intensively in their innovative process to tailor their products to the needs of educators. A wide range of companies has begun to use data on learning outcomes as a new dimension of product development.

Embarking on the efforts together, Walmart, Caterpillar, Microsoft, CEMEX, and McDonalds have launched large-scale training that includes technical and life skills, internships, and job placement services as well as creating a far more robust and cost-effective training and placement programme than any one actor could do alone.

Significantly, companies create shared value in education when they generate economic benefits for their businesses while simultaneously addressing unmet educational needs, according to Kramer and Porter. They emphasised that “Shared value is rooted in a company’s strategy and competitive positioning in three ways: re-conceiving products and markets, increasing productivity in the value chain, and strengthening the regional clusters that define competitive context”.

In Thailand, some companies have worked towards achieving CSV in Education. Unfortunately, they are working individually and without clear-cut support from the government sector. 

In fact, Berli Jucker in Thailand has set up a competition programme to seek the best teachers.

Pico has created the Annual Congress for Teacher Profession Development, namely “EDUCA” for 7 years as well as work jointly with Minister of Education in producing the “Teacher TV” program.

PTT has set up its own university and curriculum that locks into their product line at Map Ta Phut. And CP has invented its own vocational schools and designed a curriculum that trains youths in-house, a special work-integrated learning environment.

But to achieve CSV, government organisations must also step in, be open-minded and work hand-in-hand with the private sector to develop education policies, curricula, and standards aligned with education reform needs. Moreover, the authorities should gather more knowledge about shared values in order to promote the best practices and expand the network of Public Private Partnership (PPP or P3) and the CSV model.

I will attend the Transforming the Role of Business in Education conference very soon. There, I will hear what business and civil society leaders have done in exploring how companies can create shared value in education worldwide.

And I, of course, plan to share the insight with The Nation’s readers here very soon. But I also do hope that Thailand will have similar forums to generate adequate attention and interest in this topic.

Let’s create shared value in education!

 

PRIYAKORN PUSAWIRO, Dr -Ing

Learning scientist, Computer Engineering Dept

King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi

[email protected]