Having talked yesterday on the show about the amount of screen time kids are currently having after school (5 and a quarter hours by the way), I’m not surprised there’s a drive to show kids what other jobs beyond Influencer or YouTuber there are out there.

The Tertiary Education Commission’s idea is to get adults in front of kids to highlight a range of different career options, breaking down societal and gender stereotypes around career choices. They're targeting primary school kids. I would’ve thought primary school age was a bit young, I mean there're still plenty of high school aged students who don’t even know what they want to do. 

But apparently research shows that ‘what kids think about and dream about at the age of seven, eight, nine, 10 and 11 is actually highly predictive of what they do in subject choices in high school and in terms of what they might study at tertiary education’, according to the Commission. Hence, they want to start getting a variety of jobs and career options in front of kids from a young age; farmers, IT experts, geologists, builders.

The aim is to broaden the list of things kids think they can do.

Because, despite the advances of technology, ‘girls can do anything’ mantras, and the digital age, kids still don’t tend to think too far outside the box. A survey by the Tertiary Education Commission in 2019, of more than 7 thousand primary school students, found ‘more than half of them saw their chosen career as one of just nine jobs,’ according to one report. ‘At the top of the list was sportsperson, second place, a vet, third a police officer, fourth, a teacher.’ Guess what fifth was? Social media influencer.

The jobs they want to do are influenced by what they see and observe which underscores the huge role social media plays in kids’ lives these days. Wanting to be a YouTuber is not an uncommon answer when you talk to younger kids. They're just reflecting back what they see. And that's why environment is important too. Lower decile school children apparently have lower expectations of career paths.

So, to broaden their minds, the Commission is getting adults from a variety of jobs to talk about those jobs to kids in school.

I was surprised by how few schools actually have people go in to speak to kids about career choices.

Six hundred adults have volunteered to do it, but they need thousands more volunteers.

I hope they get them, and I hope they’re from a diverse range of fields because kids do need to think bigger.

They also need to accept the jobs of the future will be different to what they see now.

There are infinite possibilities beyond teacher or policeman, or, God forbid, YouTuber.