Partnership for 21st Century Skills

Abstract

In this paper we explore what needs to be done by educators and businesses to help these new ideas to flourish. It’s hard to imagine what the future workforce looks like, such is the rate of change we will inevitably experience through advances in technology. And yet, hard as it is, much effort is spent on predicting what the world will look like for the employers and employees of tomorrow, whether that’s imagining the volume and types of jobs that will be made redundant by the rapid development of robots and AI, or the percentage of school-age children who will be working in jobs that don’t currently exist. (The estimate is 65%1.) The significant issue here is the need to be able to adapt to the future skills and employment needs in a way that exploits the opportunity that these developments bring and to do so in a sustainable way. Likewise, a great deal of thought has been put into the definition of skills needed for the future: 21st century skills. Much commentary has been offered in scholarly journals, in blog posts, and in magazine articles. Thoughts have been put forward by those in industry, by those in government, and by those involved in the educational sphere. Indeed, some – IBM in particular – have heralded the dawn of “new collar” jobs.2 For the interests of this paper, we are using the definitions found in the paper prepared by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with the Boston Consulting Group New Vision for Education:Fostering Social and Emotional Learning through Technology.3 The graphic on the following page represents those competencies and character qualities that are essential for the future workforce as laid down in this ‘new vision’.

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