Educating for innovation- driven societies Dirk Van Damme Head of Division
Paris, 26 April 2012
Educating for innovationdriven societies
Dirk Van Damme
Head of Division
OECD Directorate for Education
Skills and education for innovation
« 21st Century Skills »
Education and training
Skills
Innovation
Skills for innovation
Skills
Education and training
Innovation
• Is innovation hampered by a lack of qualified personnel?
• What skills/qualifications foster innovation in the economy?
• Has innovation led to a change in the level and type of education demanded?
• Are certain uses of workforce skills associated with more innovation?
Individual skills for innovation
Skills
Education and training
Innovation
• Education systems have to produce skills for three modes of innovation:
– Elite model (R&D, breakthrough)
– Democratic model
(organisational learning, incremental)
– User-driven model
• What skills shall everyone have in an innovation-driven society?
– Adapt to creative destruction
(LLL)
– Readiness for tertiary education
– Participate in innovation process as user and producer
What individual skills should education systems foster?
Technical skills
(know-what and knowhow)
Behavioural and social skills
(Self-confidence, energy, perseverance, passion, leadership, collaboration, communication)
Skills in thinking and creativity
(Critical thinking, ability to make connections, imagination, curiosity,...)
Skills
Education for innovation
Education and training
Innovation
• Curriculum
– How broad or narrow?
– Should some specific fields be privileged?
• Pedagogy
– Are some pedagogies more effective in fostering
simultaneously all the sets of skills?
• Assessment
– How to give equal weight in assessments to all sets of skills for innovation?
– Can we develop new tools that will help teachers to assess progress in creativity, critical thinking, and social and behavioural skills?
Educating for innovative societies
Skills
Education and training
Innovation
• Conversation with Howard
Gardner
• STEM education
– How to teach them to develop simultaneously all the sets of skills in mathematics and in science?
• Arts education
– What do we know about the impact of arts education on skill development?
– What role does it play in innovation more generally?
• Developing new tools for assessing 21 st century skills
– Creativity
– Collaborative problem-solving (PISA
2012 and 2015)
– Other sets of skill
THANK YOU
www.oecd.org/edu/innovation
