Preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist

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JIMMY MOYAHA: A couple of weeks ago, I was hosting a webinar series with the team at Eduvos, and we were looking at the conversations around the future of work and the careers of tomorrow. For those interested in that webinar series, it is available on the Moneyweb website. We’re going to be taking a look at that [in more depth] with the Eduvos Bedfordview Campus general manager, Dr Tony Matchaba-Hove.

He joins me on the line now to take a look at some of the interesting developments we’re seeing from an educational standpoint related to the careers of the future. Dr Matchaba-Hove, it’s lovely having you on the show. Thanks so much for taking the time.

We clearly live in a world where data suggests that people are thinking about education differently and some might even be looking at careers that technically do not even exist yet.

TONY MATCHABA-HOVE: Good day, Jimmy, to you and your listeners, and thank you for having me. Yes, we are operating in a world that is changing rapidly as technology disrupts and shifts with a change in our demands.

Quite clearly, there’s an urgent need for individuals who have adaptable human capabilities that can participate in the world of work with future-ready skills to access, create, and sustain meaningful work.

I think quite clearly, this is an urgent call that everybody in the higher education space needs to take heed of.

At Eduvos, we have taken great strides to meet this new demand. You mentioned just now that there are students who will be working in roles that don’t exist yet, and we are preparing young individuals for those careers through our teaching and learning approach.

This approach is designed to cater for both working professionals and full-time students across face-to-face and hybrid learning, online learning, and distance learning.

Eduvos also focuses on accessibility and innovation because we want to prepare our students not just for current opportunities, but to adapt or pivot into new industries that could emerge as the workplace evolves. So it’s definitely a very relevant topic that we are discussing today, and I think going forward.

JIMMY MOYAHA: Dr Tony, for some, this might be overwhelming, especially with how rapid change takes place. For some people, change does make for an uncomfortable conversation and uncomfortable learning experiences. How do you start to have conversations around that change? How do you prepare students for change, which at this point seems to be inevitable?

TONY MATCHABA-HOVE: They say the only thing we can guarantee is change.

Looking at Eduvos and focusing on what was said in the World Economic Forum’s New Economy Skills report, which came out in December last year, it’s quite clear that,

…the defining drivers of employability, productivity, and generally the long-term economic resilience of the future are having skills, resilience, critical thinking, and collaboration and empathy, not just technological competencies.

So now, having that incorporated into our teaching and learning is a key component of being able to have those change discussions.

As I mentioned earlier, we’re looking at our accessible learning options in terms of our modes of delivery. We also look at the bigger picture, in terms of making sure that you’re not just getting an education, but one with practical skills included and all the opportunities to apply what you’re learning in the classroom.

JIMMY MOYAHA: Dr Tony, let’s look at those skills in a bit more detail. From an employer’s perspective, how are employers now influencing what it is that they expect from employees or future employees? And how is that relationship then filtering through into the conversations you have as the higher education partner in that journey?

TONY MATCHABA-HOVE: Well, I think employers are quite clear. They value applied human-centric skills, and we make sure every graduate leaves with those skills, ready to contribute right from the start.

Students gain that hands-on experience during their studies – for example, our law students gain practical experience through our law clinic; our media studies students complete industry-simulated briefs; and our science students run experiments that are linked to real-world scenarios.

For all of this to take place, we need to partner with employers to secure those agreements, to make sure that our graduates have that direct access to the workforce, and they can link their studies to what they actually would be doing.

Another good example would be our partnership with RGB Gaming, with our esports having taken off, and in the last few years at events such as Comic Con [pop culture and gaming festival], where students get exposure to the gaming world, showcasing their future-facing skills, including robotics, machine learning, cybersecurity, and game development, to name a few – and linking, again, the curriculum that they are studying to the need out there in the working world.

JIMMY MOYAHA: Dr Tony, before I let you go, I want to take a look at South Africa in particular. We face a unique challenge in our education system: even with having graduates and educated youth in South Africa, the job market itself isn’t growing at the rate we’re producing graduates.

So we find ourselves with unemployed graduates, as well as an ever-growing unemployment problem.

How do we start to rethink this particular problem, bearing in mind some of these unique job markets that you just touched on? Some of these areas don’t necessarily even exist in South Africa or aren’t as big in South Africa. How do we start to leverage that into redefining and reshaping the job market here?

TONY MATCHABA-HOVE: That’s a very good question. Your thoughts and insights are also shared by the views of the 2026 World Economic Forum’s Youth Pulse report, which shows that young people are very aware of the disruption of AI, and they are anxious about the shrinking entry-level jobs.

The expectation is that higher education should also be shifting to a way of learning that is flexible, purposeful, and relevant in terms of being grounded in human support, and calling for us as higher education institutions to help them build those adaptable, future-proof capabilities.

I think that’s the key component here: we need to think about the world of work that does not yet exist, and make sure that graduates, when the time comes, can meaningfully contribute to the workforce. So the expectations of higher education institutions are changing, and in that shift, people are wanting to learn about things that are relevant.

At Eduvos, we want to make sure that we are intentionally designing for the human capability gap, not just the technology gap, and that’s where our offerings come into play.

For South Africa in particular, as you said, where unemployment is a key point to note, inequality and skills mismatches are urgent national challenges that need to be addressed by all parties in the higher education space.

I think looking at that skills shortage, it’s not just private higher education institutions that need to focus on it. Public institutions also cannot absorb the demand in students who want to study and then, once they’ve graduated, be able to contribute meaningfully.

At Eduvos, for example, last year we received over 53 000 applications, of which we enrolled 22 000 students across our 12 campuses.

We want to engage in more public-private sector initiatives, and we believe that it is an important component in shaping the future.

JIMMY MOYAHA: Building careers of tomorrow by reinforcing some of the important skills needed for the future. That is the aim of Eduvos. We will leave the conversation on that note. Thanks so much to the Eduvos Bedfordview general manager, Dr Tony Matchaba-Hove, for joining us to take a look at their educational offerings and how they are preparing the youth for the future.

Brought to you by Eduvos. 

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