What the future of work means for today’s students

Jeremy: The jobs that South Africa needs tomorrow will not look exactly like the jobs it has today. Artificial intelligence, automation and new industries are changing what employers need, how companies compete and how economies grow.  This raises a very difficult question: is higher education moving quickly enough?

Here in South Africa, the stakes are particularly high. The higher education debate goes to the heart of growth, to productivity and economic participation.

This is No Ordinary Wednesday, an Investec podcast where we examine the forces shaping business, markets and economies. I'm Jeremy Maggs.

Today we're asking what higher education means in this era of rapid change. It's all about future readiness, what students need, what employers value and what South Africa has to get right if education is to become a stronger bridge into the economy. It's an important issue.

To discuss this, I'm joined by Jerome September, Dean of Student Affairs at Wits University, which was recently ranked number one in Africa in the 2026 Centre for World University rankings. A timely signal of the role that African universities play in developing talent for this changing world. And from Investec, Lesley-Anne Gatter, Global Head of People & Organisation.

To both of you, a very warm welcome to No Ordinary Wednesday.

Jeremy: When universities think about preparing students for the future, what do you think has changed fundamentally over the past five years?

Jerome: Five years ago we were in the middle of Covid, and we thought of a different reality coming out of Covid. Part of that was many people were telling us, at the time, that the idea of in-person campus experience is a thing of the past. We know that it's not quite as simple as that.

I think the big shift has been AI and the impact of AI, the digital world and how we now think about the kind of graduates that we're sending to the world, the kind of citizens that we produce for a world that is really uncertain, to some extent scary for some of us.

But how do we now help young people navigate this complex world where tomorrow is not quite so certain as we may have thought a couple of years ago.

Jeremy: Lesley-Anne when we talk about South Africa's low growth challenge, how directly do you think that is linked to the quality, the relevance and the accessibility of education right now?

Lesley-Anne: We think education does matter. I think that as the world progresses that uncertainty prevails, that the only thing we can be sure of here is that AI will shape the workforce of the future. It will shape economic participation as things go and automation will govern.

So, what does that mean? Do technical skills matter? Does growth in the economy and participation increase with education? We think it does.

We think education is the bridge between potential and participation in this economy and the real angle is what will people get educated in now? Where do they go?

We think technical skills matter but we really do think that the big game changer, the step move to participation, is the how. What we do now and how it gets absorbed.

Jeremy: Jerome, there's this trope “the future of work” and you'll agree with me that it becomes quite abstract at times. For a student entering university today what does that mean practically?

Jerome: I think for us, what it means at a practical level is that the degree is no longer the full package. That degree is a foundation. What we've got to do is to help our students on a journey towards learning sets of skills, behaviours and values that make them not just think about a job tomorrow but to think in a broader sense about economic participation.

So, for the first-year student, it is to help them think about how they use this time at a university, which is really a special time, three or four years in the educational process, to think about that as a lifelong process. That I'm going to constantly need to upskill, unlearn, relearn, find new ways of being of doing and so on.

To also think about how they use this time at university to prepare themself for that world. So, to what extent do they get involved in what is often referred to as the co-curricular space, the extracurricular space. The clubs, the societies, the vibrancy that sits there, the crossing the cultural lines and meeting people outside of your comfort zones.

They must also think about how they present themselves in the online space. So how do I think about a future me and kind of build the ways of being towards that future me.

Jeremy: And just for the record, you're not necessarily talking about nightclubs, are you?

Jerome: Well, that could be fun too. Bu it is then about that balance. So how do I live life? How am I this young person that necessarily must push boundaries because that's the phase of life that I'm in?

But how do I do it in a responsible way so that when Lesley-Anne looks at my online profile in a few years' time, when I want a job at Investec, that I'm not super embarrassed about some of the things.

Jeremy: Lesley-Anne, when you look at companies and sectors right now, what are employers starting to value perhaps more highly in the present than they did a decade ago? There has been a paradigm shift.

Lesley-Anne: There's definitely been a paradigm shift. The big shift that we've seen is that as the machines become so much more present in our world and as they absorb huge parts of technical capability and automation happens, really the shift is to human capabilities. It's never been more important in the employer environment to look at human capability.

So as the machines become more capable, we want humans who are more humane. We want humans who really amplify human capabilities. We're interested in people who can solve complex problems. We're interested in people who show great resilience. We're interested in people who have high adaptability and can really be agile in what's shifting.

In that uncertainty, we don't quite know what's going to shift and be. You can't predict the shift entirely and it's moving so fast but we absolutely want the application more than the technical capability. Knowledge is a commodity now but the human capability very well may not be.

Jeremy: Artificial intelligence is already changing how students learn, how academics teach and how employers are starting to assess talent. So, how are universities responding without resisting technology on the one hand but also adopting it uncritically?

Jerome: AI is here. Our students are using it every single day. We as a university, we've got to embrace that and move beyond the point of fear and embrace AI fully. As Lesley-Anne says, what are the skills that students are now taught to ask the deeper questions? So, do I simply accept what I'm given by ChatGPT, or do I critically analyse, do I look deeper? What sort of questions do I ask, the prompts that I put in that perhaps gives me a certain answer? So, how do we teach our young people around those things?

The second thing is what we do with the first-year class during orientation already and part of it is this idea of academic integrity. To what extent am I using the AI in an ethical way, in a way that upholds our values, integrity and so on. Do I acknowledge that this is someone else's work and how do I acknowledge that?

And then it's about the human skills, the critical thinking, the resilience, the deeper questioning and the analysing. In many respects, philosophy because it's the philosophers that teach us about critical thinking. It's the philosophers that push us, our brains, to think beyond here and now and to imagine possibilities. That’s what we're having to do with our students, is to really from day one we embrace.

It does mean in teaching practice, it's about the process of learning. It's about the love of learning and how we help students on that journey to learn, to love learning, to push the boundaries and to think wider. For the PhD, for example, we are now thinking about the oral exam. So, you've got this fantastic PhD that you've written, the thesis, but let's have a conversation about this work so that we can now critically analyse to what extent is this actually fully your ideas.

Jeremy: Lesley-Anne from a market and company perspective, how is AI changing the way in which businesses are starting to think about talent?

Lesley-Anne: We are thinking about talent that has shown and has some kind of evidentiary track record of people who can think in ethical ways, people who have made those ethical decisions and people who ultimately have shown that they don't engage in this cognitive surrender.

We're interested in talent that has embraced AI, works with it but knows how to work with the application. We're interested in people who don't replicate what's there but who apply ethics, who apply resilience and who apply thinking. One of the most interesting quotes, "The talent of the future can learn, unlearn, learn again, unlearn, and learn again," and it ties into the philosophy piece.

As much as we as all employers are rolling out huge AI learning pieces throughout our organisations and our Learning and Development departments are just frenetic with AI learning, we’d be better off teaching a class in philosophy. We'd be better off teaching critical reasoning and ethical thinking.

Jeremy: Lesley-Anne, when investors think about infrastructure, they often think of energy, ports, roads and maybe digital networks. Should we be thinking about education in the same way?

Lesley-Anne: I think education is the infrastructure to opportunity. Education lays the bridge to really accessing opportunity. If it is that bridge between potential and participation, we need talent that is vibrant, that is resilient, that is capable of being really human. It equally needs to know how to work with knowledge. It needs to understand what to do. So, education becomes the fundamental place that we see knowledge being built but application being developed.

We think that universities will play the role that they've always played but the role that they were originally intended to place, noble places of learning that question the canon, that question AI and that work beyond the hallucination that's coming in automation.

Jeremy: So, what you're saying is that there is a risk that the future skills conversation becomes too narrow if it is simply focused on immediate employability?

Jerome: Absolutely. If we only think about the immediate employability, we're probably positioning ourselves out of relevance. It has to be about economic participation. It's got to be about skillsets that I could use in different environments.

As I think about my work of the future, it's perhaps not that it's a job at Investec that I arrive in as a 23-year-old and retire as a 60-year-old. But it's perhaps different things that I do across the journey of my life.

Perhaps selling my skills to different organisations at the same time. But importantly, what also needs to come into the conversation is entrepreneurship. The graduate not only thinking of themself as a job seeker but as a job creator. It is within that entrepreneurship development kind of skills that it is about problem-solving, thinking about what the needs of society are and how I solve those kinds of problems.

So, it's economic participation and skills that are required to live a dignified life - which is what we all want. Then the ways of being where I don't only think of myself as looking for a job but perhaps seeing a problem and creating a solution thereby creating jobs for others.

Jeremy: Lesley-Anne organisations, Investec included, have a responsibility. Investec's education work spans initiatives such as ProMaths, bursaries and InvestEd. Without turning this into a program discussion, what do you think the broader principle behind investing in learners should be before they reach the workplace?

Lesley-Anne: I think we can't overestimate investing in learners before they reach the workplace. The principle, I think, is very clear. Talent is far more evenly distributed than opportunity and what we need to do is invest in that talent pipeline long before it gets to the workplace. I think South Africa's done well in this, and Investec, I hope, champions how we think about this.

Corporate South Africa has long invested in universities and specifically in learnerships programs, chairs and institutes inside the universities. We've long seen that we have to come in at that level of university and high school, in a Pro Maths example, but in university to really amplify the talent pipeline that comes into the university.

Given how uneven education is in this country, I think we need to really hype up what happens inside universities and places of higher learning because we need to really enhance that talent pipeline long before it gets here, even if it's not going to work here. Even if it's going to do things like bounty work, external opportunities and entrepreneurship.

Jeremy: Which sectors in South Africa are most exposed to this future skills question that we've been talking about?

Lesley-Anne: Financial services, healthcare, advanced manufacturing and the green economy. These sectors and spaces are changing rapidly. But I would say that less focus on the sectors and more focus on the capabilities. Coming in with a skill and just being technically appraised is not going to help anybody, the sector or the individual in time.

Really, the capabilities that we're going to need, which are transferable across sectors, are going to be where we're interested in unlocking potential. It's the ability around continuous learning that is going to be the capability.

Jeremy: Jerome, if universities are expected to prepare students for this more complex world, what support or policy certainty do you think is needed?

Jerome: I think in the first instance, there's probably conversations that needs to be had about a more adaptive regulatory framework. At the moment, it is really difficult for a university to change course content, and so there has to be a conversation around how some of that is made easier so that universities can perhaps move faster with the times around certain aspects of those.

Sitting in that, of course, is then also this idea of thinking universities, thinking and investing in lifelong learning, which means that we've got to think about micro-credentialing. We've got to think about those short courses that are able to respond to the immediate needs that there might be. So, while the degree is still relevant in terms of preparing you for that longer term and laying that kind of foundation, there's the immediate skills that are needed and the upgrading of those skills that's kind of required.

Then, of course, there's the partnership, so industry, government and universities working closer together. Lastly, investing in the co-curricular and extracurricular space so that that child can get into the debating union, which is where they're going to learn to reason, to argue and to think deeper. That's also an important component.

Jeremy: What is the biggest risk if higher education doesn't adapt quickly enough?

Jerome: Well, it's the disconnect. There's already question marks across the world around the relevance of universities, and many young people in a context where I think our graduate unemployment rate is currently around 12% - so many ask the questions about the relevance of a university education in this context. Universities must adapt.

The university also must go again back to where we started, deep within itself, to stay perhaps true to its roots. Its roots have always been about more than the technical skill. It has been about developing a citizen, a full human being who can think, who can reason and own sets of values and ways of being.

Jeremy: Lesley-Anne, what do you think the risk is if South Africa fails to close this future skills gap?

Lesley-Anne: If South Africa fails to close the gap, I think there's an economic cost but there's a human cost. The exclusion will just create a widening divide that will be unparalleled almost just because the pace of change is so rapid at the moment.

I do think more optimistically about it. I think that where other infrastructure and other step-up changes could leave countries like South Africa behind, because tech is so nascent, because the change is so rapid, I think the world's all in a very similar place.

So, access becomes a very big piece, but we could leapfrog big gaps at the moment given that we could all be on a very similar place. It could be very similar for South Africa as it could be for so-called more advanced or more inclusive economies. We could really move very fast, but the cost is an economic imperative. It's a societal one.

Jeremy: And that's where we are going to leave it. Jerome September, Dean of Student Affairs at Wits University. Lesley-Anne Gatter, Investec Global Head of People and Organisation. Thank you both for joining us on this edition of No Ordinary Wednesday.

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