Jack Delosa reflects on the upbringing that brought him to dedicate his life to improving education and provided the motivation to build Australia’s largest education institution for entrepreneurs, The Entourage.

I’m often asked why I devote so much of my life to improving education. Well… below is me at the age of five. This is how I spent much of my upbringing. My father, pictured in the middle of this photo, was the Managing Director of a not-for-profit organisation called Breaking the Cycle. My mother was the Head Trainer (not pictured).

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Breaking the Cycle would take long-term unemployed youth off the street and put them through a training program of workshops, wilderness retreats and life-skill courses that would ultimately result in meaningful employment. Because only a finite number of kids could be taught each year, Breaking the Cycle chose the most at risk: young adults who were in and out of jail, addicted to drugs or from abusive homes.

Despite purposefully selecting the most challenged people, Breaking the Cycle would place 97 per cent of its kids into employment, with 85 per cent still meaningfully employed after 12 months. It was the most successful job-placement agency for long-term-unemployed youth in Australia.

Breaking the Cycle was a big part of my family’s life and in many ways shaped who I am today. I can remember spending numerous weekends just as I am in the photo above, completely immersed in fundraisers and fun runs to bring in money that would keep the organisation alive. I would listen intently to the presentations, I would observe the way the young adults would talk about their experiences, and most of all I remember feeling like we were one big extended family, a family with a purpose.

Whenever I could, I’d take a day off school and go into the office to spend time with the teenagers and learn from Mum and the other trainers. Many of the kids starting the course looked as though they were ready to die. Over a period of three months, I was witness, first-hand, to their transformation – Breaking the Cycle helped to change their entire outlook on life. I remember this as a particularly happy and profound time in my childhood.

I became enchanted by a world that enabled people to transform – a world where it was possible for kids with little hope to grow into young adults with their own sense of purpose and direction. Even at this young age, I remember thinking this was the most important job in the world: to help people lead meaningful lives.

In 1995, the federal government shut down the Commonwealth Employment Services department, re-engineering how not-for-profits would access capital. As a result of these changes, Breaking the Cycle was no longer able to access the funding upon which it depended. I felt a strong sense of social and political injustice that an organisation that had helped thousands of kids break the cycle of drugs, violence, crime and jail was now no longer able to carry out its valuable work, simply because it didn’t have the money. Breaking the Cycle collapsed.

Getting to know the thousands of kids that came through Breaking the Cycle and seeing their lives transform, showed me far too many people fall by the wayside because they don’t fit the traditional mould that the academic assembly line is preparing us for. The education system fails those who are not suited to industrial-age style of learning. With access to the right guidance and information, though, it’s often these ‘square pegs’ who demonstrate the most independence of thought and have the potential to contribute something truly unique. Although I didn’t have the awareness to fully understand it yet, Breaking the Cycle introduced me to a field that would become my life’s work: education.

Nelson Mandela said, ‘Education is the most powerful weapon with which we can change the world.’ I believe this to be true. Education teaches children how to read and write, and it gives people an opportunity to lift themselves out of poverty. It teaches accountants how to prepare financial statements and doctors how to perform life-saving surgeries. However, we are now in an era of unprecedented change and uncertainty. Education needs to do more than teach us how to remember; it needs to teach us how to think.

Students starting school in 2017 will, if they go on to tertiary studies, be entering the workforce in 2035. Given today’s ever-increasing rate of change, this presents an enormous challenge for us as a society. How do we ensure we are able to empower them for a future we ourselves know little about?

A few years ago, IBM spoke to over 1100 global business leaders for their biennial IBM CEO Study and identified the two main competencies that employers need in their people: adaptability to change and creativity in generating new ideas. I believe we are not meeting this challenge sufficiently.

The education system that is in use today was designed in the year 1890 and is still firmly based on long-held curriculums and teaching methods that are preparing students for a world that no longer exists. In order to truly address this gap, we need to transform our education system into one that places as much emphasis on emotional intelligence, creativity and innovation as it does on numeracy and literacy. We need to move away from a system that focuses on group standards to one that focuses on the individual, a system that targets a person’s strengths and values to help guide what they learn.

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Thanks to Breaking the Cycle, from an early age I have been dissatisfied with the conventional path that traditional education sets us up for. My protest is against a system that commends conformity. My fight is against a world that encourages mediocrity. I believe humanity needs to evolve to a new paradigm that celebrates individuality and promotes the pursuit of one’s unique purpose. Each person’s path is as unique as their fingerprint.

This inherent dissatisfaction drove me to forge my own path, one that worked for me. Breaking the Cycle proved that when education is done well, it can improve even the most challenged lives. Well, with our work at The Entourage I hope to prove at scale, that great education can enable generations to live a life that is meaningful to them.

As always I am interested in hearing your thoughts around this. In the comments below let me know what you think of the current state of education. 

The Entourage is Australia’s largest education institution for entrepreneurs and innovators with 300,000 members worldwide. If you’re interested in finding out more click here.