In an interview with Shauna Cox of Modern Campus, Amrit Ahluwalia (Western University) and Bryan Benjamin (Western Ivey Academy) discuss the importance of cross-institution collaborations that offer lifelong learning. Ahluwalia and Benjamin highlight several influencing factors in the world of lifelong learning, including the shrinking traditional student demographic and the changing world of work. For lifelong learning offerings to succeed in this changing world, they emphasize the need for institutions to take a collaborative, customer-centric approach. “If our customer sees themselves as a customer, we need to treat them as a customer,” explains Ahluwalia, who explains that this entails offering a painless administrative system, relevant and applicable learning, and a reasonable price point and modality for prospective learners. Benjamin and Ahluwalia also highlight the importance of regularly updating programming and using data to shape continuing learning.
