21st Century Skills

According to a World Economic Forum report published in 2020, 97 million more jobs may emerge that are better adapted to the new dynamic. Among the top 10 skills in terms of prominence by the year 2025, according to the report, are soft skills including creativity, leadership, and flexibility. While education can generally provide a basis for future re-skilling, self-actualization, and forming a civic identity, specific educational curricula cannot remain fixed as standard career paths continue to evolve and become less linear than ever before. While there is a wide-ranging consensus that no single skill set or area of expertise is likely to be able to sustain a long-term career in the future, the core soft skills of the 21st century - including not just creativity and flexibility but also complex problem solving, critical thinking, and collaboration - will be crucial for enabling people to become better able to adapt to the changing needs of the job market.

‍

These soft skills should be developed early, in basic education, and then later refined at colleges and universities - as well as, ideally, during lifelong learning as an adult. By providing a strong base of soft skills, an educational system can serve as a catalyst not only for an increased adaptability to future jobs, but also for a generally improved quality of life. However, shifting demand for skills across industries will require that curricula be updated and adapted on a regular basis - because they are naturally informed by the evolution of labor markets. Upgrades to curricula should also be built into systems incrementally, to avoid the excessive disruption and implementation One, single organization cannot provide these soft skills alone, and certainly not for the duration of a person’s life - therefore the creation of adequate learning systems requires at least a certain amount of input from both public and private institutions. In general, more emphasis should be placed on collating insights from government, businesses, and civil society organizations when designing curricula. (source-World Economic forum)

‍

What are 21st century skills?

21st century skills comprise skills, abilities, and learning dispositions identified as requirements for success in 21st century society and workplaces by educators, business leaders, academics, and governmental agencies. This is part of an international movement focusing on the skills required for students to prepare for workplace success in a rapidly changing, digital society. Many of these skills are associated with deeper learning, which is based on mastering skills such as analytic reasoning, complex problem solving, and teamwork, which differ from traditional academic skills as these are not content knowledge-based(source-Wikipedia)

‍

Any individual ,whether an educator ,business leader, a student or an individual trying just finishing up school to go explore career opportunities. This skills include creativity, critical thinking, collaboration , media literacy, communication, leadership, problem solving, social skills, information literacy, ethics, productivity, innovation skills, soft skills , initiative, flexibility and many more.

‍

In the traditional education skills like literacy ,numeracy and speaking were the core of the education because that is what was needed to be successful in the society and in career. With the development in all fields of education whether it is language , or skill development or computer literacy ,the requirement to adapt and inculcate the 21st century skills has become one of the core aspect of education for a holistic development of any individual.

‍

Below is the comparison between the traditional skills and 21st century skills :

‍

Why is it important to implement in the education system?

The fast growing and constantly changing world of the internet has become very important for schools and to prepare their students for its challenges and skills. The schools, are preparing their students for the jobs and their challenges which are yet to come, and these challenges need skills which are suitable for and beneficial for the over all development of the students and which will prepare them for future opportunities.

‍

Schools have based their curriculum on certain skill sets which will help in the holistic development of an individual. With Bit and Brick -Everyone can make and Everyone can play the 4cs of of 21st century skills i.e. Creativity, Collaboration, Communication and Critical thinking are inculcated with the learning activities each course provides.

‍