etween 2021 and 2024, Salzburg Global Seminar is providing Education Policymakers (EPN) from 25 countries with a platform for peer learning and an exchange of ideas on how education can contribute to addressing the challenges of the 21century.
Participants widely agree that education reform has to include a focus on developing a breadth of skills that enable young people to tackle issues like reducing inequality, increasing participation, resolving conflicts, keeping peace, and the development of technologies that provide for both the well-being of humankind and the protection of the environment and climate.
There is consensus among participants that education must broaden from the traditional teaching of literacy, numeracy, subject-based content, and knowledge to more emphasis on critical thinking, problem solving and skills for communication, collaboration, creativity and innovation.
As part of a recent stock-taking exercise, members of an EPN learning circle from Colombia, Germany, Lebanon, Portugal, and Scotland reflected on the challenges of implementing breadth of skills into the formal curriculum of their countries.
Members agreed that embedding breadth of skills into formal learning was already a key strategic part of educational reform in their countries. However, the process of translating strategy into policy and then implementation was both a complex and longitudinal process.
To successfully embed a breadth of skills in education systems you need:
- To go beyond acknowledgement - it is insufficient merely to acknowledge that a skill, for example creativity, is required in modern education. All actors within the system, such as children, parents, teachers, school leaders and politicians, need to understand what is meant by each type of skill and why it is important. This requires:
- Shared definitions – different types of skills often mean different things to different people. It is almost impossible to develop skills in a systematic way within formal education if the various actors within a system who work with children are working to develop their individual interpretations of what a skill might be. You also must acknowledge that skills development looks and feels different across geographical contexts (local and international) and at each stage of a child’s development. This requires:
- Progression frameworks – skills are both built on and developed over time. Skills should be developed through lived rather than contrived experiences in a range of appropriate contexts. This requires:
- Local, regional, national and global skills application – while technology companies talk about global skills shortages and politicians talk about national skills shortages, for skills to be meaningful to children skills acquisition needs to be embedded within curriculum and developed locally first. This requires:
- Skills pedagogy – It is almost impossible to learn social skills without other people, emotional skills without experiencing a range of emotions, and cognitive skills without knowledge transfer. Although inter-connected, all of these skills look and feel different therefore require pedagogies that look and feel different from each other. For example, although direct instruction might be one way to develop cognitive skills, it is difficult to develop creative skills in this way. To develop creative skills children need to ‘create’ something and this would normally involve pedagogies that allow children to imagine a new idea, create or build it, play with it to see if it works, share with others to get feedback, reflect on the learning, re-imagine the idea, and then create it again. This process is often described as the creative learning spiral (see fig: 1.0).
As pedagogy and assessment are interconnected it is also important to consider how to measure skills development. This requires:
- Skills assessment and measurement – any type of skills assessment must be aligned to the pedagogy. For example, while you can assess some cognitive skills through a written assessment, physical skills can only be measured through a practical task and creative skills should be more about measuring the creative process rather than the final product. It is very important that assessment metrics don’t inhibit the development of the skill. Imagine if you asked children to design a chair but in your measurement metrics only gave credit if the final design had 4 legs? This requires:
- Professional learning and leadership programs – to support the above, systems require national professional development programs (pre-service and in-service) as well as an understanding that skills and the application of skills will continue to develop over time. These programs should be as much about ensuring that education professionals have an opportunity to develop their own skills as well as up-skilling in the pedagogy and assessment methodology to ensure that a range of holistic skills can be embedded within formal curricula.
The Learning Circle concluded that regional and national systems of education are broadening their educational thinking and provision to equip students to enable a breadth of skills beyond literacy and numeracy. There remains much work to be done, however there is clear potential for countries to assist each other in developing approaches to implementation.
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Closing the Global Skills Gap by Teaching Breadth of Skills
Photo via Adobe Stock.
September 5, 2022
As part of Salzburg Global Seminar’s EPN Program, education policymakers from Colombia, Germany, Lebanon, Portugal, and Scotland reflect on what is needed to successfully embed a breadth of skills in education systems.
B
etween 2021 and 2024, Salzburg Global Seminar is providing Education Policymakers (EPN) from 25 countries with a platform for peer learning and an exchange of ideas on how education can contribute to addressing the challenges of the 21century.
Participants widely agree that education reform has to include a focus on developing a breadth of skills that enable young people to tackle issues like reducing inequality, increasing participation, resolving conflicts, keeping peace, and the development of technologies that provide for both the well-being of humankind and the protection of the environment and climate.
There is consensus among participants that education must broaden from the traditional teaching of literacy, numeracy, subject-based content, and knowledge to more emphasis on critical thinking, problem solving and skills for communication, collaboration, creativity and innovation.
As part of a recent stock-taking exercise, members of an EPN learning circle from Colombia, Germany, Lebanon, Portugal, and Scotland reflected on the challenges of implementing breadth of skills into the formal curriculum of their countries.
Members agreed that embedding breadth of skills into formal learning was already a key strategic part of educational reform in their countries. However, the process of translating strategy into policy and then implementation was both a complex and longitudinal process.
To successfully embed a breadth of skills in education systems you need:
- To go beyond acknowledgement - it is insufficient merely to acknowledge that a skill, for example creativity, is required in modern education. All actors within the system, such as children, parents, teachers, school leaders and politicians, need to understand what is meant by each type of skill and why it is important. This requires:
- Shared definitions – different types of skills often mean different things to different people. It is almost impossible to develop skills in a systematic way within formal education if the various actors within a system who work with children are working to develop their individual interpretations of what a skill might be. You also must acknowledge that skills development looks and feels different across geographical contexts (local and international) and at each stage of a child’s development. This requires:
- Progression frameworks – skills are both built on and developed over time. Skills should be developed through lived rather than contrived experiences in a range of appropriate contexts. This requires:
- Local, regional, national and global skills application – while technology companies talk about global skills shortages and politicians talk about national skills shortages, for skills to be meaningful to children skills acquisition needs to be embedded within curriculum and developed locally first. This requires:
- Skills pedagogy – It is almost impossible to learn social skills without other people, emotional skills without experiencing a range of emotions, and cognitive skills without knowledge transfer. Although inter-connected, all of these skills look and feel different therefore require pedagogies that look and feel different from each other. For example, although direct instruction might be one way to develop cognitive skills, it is difficult to develop creative skills in this way. To develop creative skills children need to ‘create’ something and this would normally involve pedagogies that allow children to imagine a new idea, create or build it, play with it to see if it works, share with others to get feedback, reflect on the learning, re-imagine the idea, and then create it again. This process is often described as the creative learning spiral (see fig: 1.0).
As pedagogy and assessment are interconnected it is also important to consider how to measure skills development. This requires:
- Skills assessment and measurement – any type of skills assessment must be aligned to the pedagogy. For example, while you can assess some cognitive skills through a written assessment, physical skills can only be measured through a practical task and creative skills should be more about measuring the creative process rather than the final product. It is very important that assessment metrics don’t inhibit the development of the skill. Imagine if you asked children to design a chair but in your measurement metrics only gave credit if the final design had 4 legs? This requires:
- Professional learning and leadership programs – to support the above, systems require national professional development programs (pre-service and in-service) as well as an understanding that skills and the application of skills will continue to develop over time. These programs should be as much about ensuring that education professionals have an opportunity to develop their own skills as well as up-skilling in the pedagogy and assessment methodology to ensure that a range of holistic skills can be embedded within formal curricula.
The Learning Circle concluded that regional and national systems of education are broadening their educational thinking and provision to equip students to enable a breadth of skills beyond literacy and numeracy. There remains much work to be done, however there is clear potential for countries to assist each other in developing approaches to implementation.
