Investing in Workforce & Skills-based Learning Must Be a Priority

August 30, 2021—Today, AEFIS joined a coalition of 118 organizations nationwide to sign a letter to leaders of Congress in support of funding for workforce and skills development as part of any recovery legislation. Led by Business Leaders United in coordination with Autodesk and Workday, AEFIS pledged its support for Congressional investment in resources to initiate skills-based learning programs to upskill and reskill workers to align with the growing demand for skills for today’s jobs and tomorrow’s future.

With a generational shift in occupational roles economy-wide and accelerated level of digital transformation brought on by COVID-19, we have dueling problems—workers unable to find good-paying jobs that fit their skills and employers struggling to hire skilled workers for indemand and emerging roles. Strong federal investment in the long-term success of America’s
workforce is critical to solving both challenges and address this skills mismatch.

Letter to Congress, August 30, 2021

Specifically, the letter calls for:

• Provide sufficient resources to support the demand for sector-based workforce training and reskilling programs that help bridge skills mismatch, including workers’ digital skill needs, while promoting more equitable economic mobility,
• Expand workforce training capacity by providing tax incentives for training programs led by industry, educators, and non-profit organizations and embracing flexible short-term and on-line training in key digital and emerging, in-demand skills, and
• Drive informed training by growing real-time labor force data identifying economywide trends focused on emerging roles and the skills needed for in-demand jobs and highdemand sectors and measure the equitable impact of public investments.

AEFIS’s initiative to advance skills recognition through Comprehensive Learner Record (CLR) is evident in its leadership driving the development of the IMS Global CLR Standard 1.0 earlier this year. CLR reinforces that learning happens everywhere with verified evidence of student learning from courses, co-curricular engagements, student employment, prior learning, and even student self-identified experiences.

With more priorities and funding being placed on workforce training and skill-based learning programs, more opportunities exist for learners to build their knowledge, skills, and abilities in key essential areas aligned to emerging roles in the laborforce and share these achievements and supporting evidence through a verifiable, portable record with employers.

In addition to serving as a signatory to advance skills-based learning through Congressional funding, AEFIS recently took the IMS Global Standards First Pledge alongside higher education, K-12, and ed-tech companies who are prioritizing interoperability and open standards to increase efficiencies in enabling a data-rich ecosystem in support of student achievement and institutional effectiveness.

Happy to serve on a team of individuals who are focused on digital transformation and skills development for students, enabling access to flexible learning environments, relevant, lifelong learning programs, and assertions that make these learners more marketable and promote student advocacy.