When is “Training” education? When it’s done in an academic context, IE an academic institution, we’d easily conclude that’s education. But what about when large corporations such as McDonalds, Walmart, and Amazon do it, to “up skill” their employees for 21st Century jobs?

Are we comfortable calling it education, even though an academic institution may not be involved? With the huge numbers involved in these corporate created “learning experiences”…maybe we will need to recognize all that as “education too”.

And what about when Walmart offers college degrees to their employees, but partners with an obscure academic institution that will do things the way Walmart wants them done? Presumably that setup was created because Walmart isn’t accredited to grant degrees. But what if corporations could get their “up skill training” qualified for certification and degrees? Seems reasonable that corporations spending huge amounts to up skill their employees would want, in the end, a greater degree of control over certification and “degrees”.

PSA has classified a fundamental base process across the spectrum of learning experiences as a “Defined Learning Experience” (DLE) Which might help us not get hung up on labels…such as under what auspices or circumstances learning takes place. At some point in our communications revolution, we might be comfortable with DLE and OTJT being a blend of activities and locations and “sponsoring entities” that adds up to “education”.

[gview file=”https://publicservicesalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Amazon-plans-to-retrain-100000-employees-CNN.pdf”]