Youth Arts Practice and Futures of Work: Micro-Credentialing of 21st Century Skills

How can creativity unlock opportunities for young people who are too often left out of formal education and training pathways? This event, Youth Arts Practice and Futures of Work, invites the public to explore micro-credentialing. We recognize practice based learning through certification employed to recognise the value of 21st Century Skills developed through youth arts, and we turn these skills into stepping stones toward meaningful employment futures.

Micro-credentials can be a way of acknowledging what young people already know and do: especially those who learn through lived experience, creative collaboration, and community participation rather than in traditional classrooms. Whether it’s directing a short film, curating a zine, leading a dance workshop, or producing music in a bedroom studio, these practices build essential 21st-century skills: communication, problem-solving, teamwork, leadership, and digital literacy.

This event highlights how arts-based micro-credentials can create real pathways into employment, further study, and civic life for young people facing barriers such as poverty, racism, disability, or displacement. We’ll hear from artists, educators, employers, and young people themselves who are developing and piloting micro-credentials that reflect the richness of cultural practice and personal growth.

What to expect:

1)  Live discussion from Dr Denise Stanley, founder of Clock Your Skills, industry experts and young artists whose work has informed credential design

2) A panel discussion on how creative skills translate into work futures

3)  Showcasing how our micro-credentials are co-designed and assessed in community and youth arts settings

4) Conversations on the future of work and inclusive education and how institutions can value diverse forms of knowledge

Join us to reimagine the future of learning and work: one that centres creativity, inclusion, and justice. Come along if you are in one of our key audience target groups: young people, educators, artists, youth workers, policymakers, employers, and anyone interested in building more equitable futures through the arts.

This is a hybrid event. Please register to receive the Teams link.

This event is a knowledge exchange outcome of the Australian Research Council Industry Linkage Project LP200301027 https://vital-arts.org/ and is co-supported by CAST (RMIT), REDI (Deakin) and DERC (Media and Communication, RMIT).