some interesting thoughts for you to ponder...
7 skills your child needs to survive the changing world of work
7 skills your child needs to survive the changing world of work
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/09/skills-children-need-work-future/
04 Sep 2017
Education may be the passport to the future, but for all the good teaching out there, it would seem that schools are failing to impart some of the most important life skills, according to one educational expert.
Dr. Tony Wagner, co-director of Harvard's Change Leadership Group, argues that today’s school children are facing a “global achievement gap”, which is the gap between what even the best schools are teaching and the skills young people need to learn.
This has been exacerbated by two colliding trends: firstly, the global shift from an industrial economy to a knowledge economy, and secondly, the way in which today’s school children - brought up with the internet - are motivated to learn.
In his book The Global Achievement Gap, Wagner identifies seven core competencies every child needs in order to survive in the coming world of work.
1. Critical thinking and problem-solving
Companies need to be able to continuously improve products, processes and services in order to compete. And to do this they need workers to have critical thinking skills and to be able to ask the right questions to get to the bottom of a problem.
2. Collaboration across networks and leading by influence
Given the interconnected nature of the business world, leadership skills and the ability to influence and work together as a team has become increasingly important. And the key to becoming an effective leader? It's twofold, says Wagner, involving "creative problem-solving and a clear ethical framework".
3. Agility and adaptability
The ability to adapt and pick up new skills quickly is vital for success: workers must be able to use a range of tools to solve a problem. This is also known as "learnability", a sought-after skills among job candidates.
4. Initiative and entrepreneurialism
There is no harm in trying: often people and businesses suffer from a tendency to be risk-averse. It is better to try 10 things and succeed in eight than it is to try five and succeed in all of them.
5. Effective oral and written communication
Recruits’ fuzzy thinking and inability to articulate their thoughts were common complaints that Wagner came across from business leaders when researching his book. This isn’t so much about young people’s ability to use grammar and punctuation correctly, or to spell, but how to communicate clearly verbally, in writing or while presenting. "If you have great ideas but you can’t communicate them, then you’re lost," Wagner says.
6. Accessing and analysing information
Many employees have to deal with an immense amount of information on a daily basis: the ability to sift through it and pull out what is relevant is a challenge. Particularly given how rapidly the information can change.
7. Curiosity and imagination
Curiosity and imagination are what drive innovation and are key to problem solving. "We’re all born curious, creative and imaginative," says Wagner. "The average four-year-old asks a hundred questions a day. But by the time that child is 10, he or she is much more likely to be concerned with getting the right answers for school than with asking good questions.
"What we as teachers and parents need do to keep alive the curiosity and imagination that, to a greater or lesser extent, is innate in every child."
It is our opinion that these seven core competencies are attributes that S.O.L.E. can help to deliver.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/09/skills-children-need-work-future/
04 Sep 2017
Education may be the passport to the future, but for all the good teaching out there, it would seem that schools are failing to impart some of the most important life skills, according to one educational expert.
Dr. Tony Wagner, co-director of Harvard's Change Leadership Group, argues that today’s school children are facing a “global achievement gap”, which is the gap between what even the best schools are teaching and the skills young people need to learn.
This has been exacerbated by two colliding trends: firstly, the global shift from an industrial economy to a knowledge economy, and secondly, the way in which today’s school children - brought up with the internet - are motivated to learn.
In his book The Global Achievement Gap, Wagner identifies seven core competencies every child needs in order to survive in the coming world of work.
1. Critical thinking and problem-solving
Companies need to be able to continuously improve products, processes and services in order to compete. And to do this they need workers to have critical thinking skills and to be able to ask the right questions to get to the bottom of a problem.
2. Collaboration across networks and leading by influence
Given the interconnected nature of the business world, leadership skills and the ability to influence and work together as a team has become increasingly important. And the key to becoming an effective leader? It's twofold, says Wagner, involving "creative problem-solving and a clear ethical framework".
3. Agility and adaptability
The ability to adapt and pick up new skills quickly is vital for success: workers must be able to use a range of tools to solve a problem. This is also known as "learnability", a sought-after skills among job candidates.
4. Initiative and entrepreneurialism
There is no harm in trying: often people and businesses suffer from a tendency to be risk-averse. It is better to try 10 things and succeed in eight than it is to try five and succeed in all of them.
5. Effective oral and written communication
Recruits’ fuzzy thinking and inability to articulate their thoughts were common complaints that Wagner came across from business leaders when researching his book. This isn’t so much about young people’s ability to use grammar and punctuation correctly, or to spell, but how to communicate clearly verbally, in writing or while presenting. "If you have great ideas but you can’t communicate them, then you’re lost," Wagner says.
6. Accessing and analysing information
Many employees have to deal with an immense amount of information on a daily basis: the ability to sift through it and pull out what is relevant is a challenge. Particularly given how rapidly the information can change.
7. Curiosity and imagination
Curiosity and imagination are what drive innovation and are key to problem solving. "We’re all born curious, creative and imaginative," says Wagner. "The average four-year-old asks a hundred questions a day. But by the time that child is 10, he or she is much more likely to be concerned with getting the right answers for school than with asking good questions.
"What we as teachers and parents need do to keep alive the curiosity and imagination that, to a greater or lesser extent, is innate in every child."
It is our opinion that these seven core competencies are attributes that S.O.L.E. can help to deliver.
the future of employment
The future employment opportunities and the type of work people will do in the 21st century is changing rapidly.
The Index of Changing Work Tasks in the U.S. Economy 1960-2009 really highlights this change. Routine manual tasks are diminishing with increasing technologies. Non routine manual tasks will not grow very much.
This means that the jobs many people performed in manufacturing, processing etc. in the past will reduce or become obsolete as machines become more able to complete a variety of tasks and business look to reduce costs - mainly labor.
So what effect does this have on education systems and direction in the the future?
Schools need to stay ahead of the curve and plan curriculum to provide students with the education and capabilities to embrace change so they have the capacity to develop new skills as the work environment evolves. There will be students who are beginning school this year who will finish their secondary education going into fields that we don't even know about or which don't exist.
