Training Objective: To grasp why future ready skills are so important in children's education To master the future ready skills of the 21st Century To use the holiday period to inculcate these skills into the students 1. WHY FUTURE READY SKILLS Help! Our graduates are becoming unemployable! A friend of mine was contracted about 2 years agp to recruit some contract staff for Microsoft Nigeria. He got over 2,000 applicants, mostly university graduates with minimum of Second Class Upper, yet none of them passed the recruitment test. He said though they are all brilliant chaps, they lack the skills required by big companies to survive in this 21st century. To clear concerns about the earlier forwarded article, there will still be universities in the next 15 years, but it will take more than university certificates to land the big jobs. Global employers are now looking for more of skills than just certificates. That is why we should know what those skills are, and how to inculcate them into our students from their early age so they don't end up with distinctions from our schools and end up as educated illiterates in the global labour markets. 2. 21ST CENTURY SKILLS More than 4Cs! If I ask any informed school administrator or teacher today the question: What are the 21st Century Skills? I am sure I will get a speedy chorus answer like this: 👉Creativity 👉Critical Thinking 👉Communication and 👉Collaboration While this is correct, but it is only partly correct. The 4Cs are only a part of 21st Century skills, it is much broader than that... 3. 21ST CENTURY SKILLS Literacies, Competencies and Character Qualities There are 16 skills that generally make up the 21st Century Skills and they can be broadly divided into 3 broad categories: 1. Foundational Literacies 2. Competencies 3. Character qualities 👉Foundational Literacies have to do with how students apply core skills to everyday tasks. There 6 of such literacies that every future ready student must possess! Literacy, Numeracy, Scientific Literacy, ICT Literacy, Financial Literacy and Culture and Civic Literacy. 👉Competencies have to do with how students approach complex challenges. This is where the 4Cs come in 👉Character Qualities have to do with how students approach their changing environment. Employers are badly in need of these 6 qualities as well! In global labour market, these skills will be in demand more than the theoretical questions and answer examination that characterize our Educational System in Africa . 4. CERTIFICATES vs SKILLS Do we then have to abandon our system? No. It is important that students be able to answer questions and pass examinations. Skills without ability to pass exam is not enough to take the child to the top. But that level where many of us are currently in Africa is the lowest level of learning. So, we would have to migrate from examination-based system (not scrapping it), to a higher level. Preparing the students to pass examinations without having basic future ready skills is the lowest form of Education you can give a child in the 21st Century. Believe me! It may be a big deal 40, 50 years ago when white collar jobs and Beetle car are waiting for any University graduate, but not any more now. African educators, I am passionately begging you, please let wake up and migrate from this low level to high level of educational delivery that will make our students competitive globally in years to come. Otherwise, some of them may curse us in future for giving them Education that will turn them to barbers and bead makers after university degrees! 5. LOWER ORDER VS HIGHER ORDER Lower Order Thinking Skills The examination-based system tests three skills majorly: Remembering, Understanding and Applying. While this is laudable in the 20th Century, it is Lower Order Skill in the 21st Century. That is the level many of our graduates are today. That is why after their Bachelors and Masters, they still can't get the desired jobs. Higher Order Skills At this level, what is being tested are more advanced: Analyzing, Evaluating and Creating. This is where all the 16 21st Century skills are inculcated in the child Please take time to study the above Taxonomy very well. Majority of us are still at the level of LOTS. It is high time we migrated fast! We must not be left behind! 6. THE WAY FORWARD The Big Question: How do we inculcate these skills into our students without disrupting academic calendar and Time Table. I recommend three ways: 1. Holiday Period Do less of academic work and more of skills, and not just any type of skills but 21st Century skills and Higher Order Thinking Skills 2. Competitions Enrol for Competitions that can boost the Cognitive and critical thinking of students. Skills are better learnt through Competitions than through academic exercise 3. Gamified platforms Students love games and games are dominating their ecosystem today more than anything else. 6. THE WAY FORWARD The Big Question: How do we inculcate these skills into our students without disrupting academic calendar and Time Table. I recommend three ways: 1. Holiday Period Do less of academic work and more of skills, and not just any type of skills but 21st Century skills and Higher Order Thinking Skills 2. Competitions Enroll for Competitions that can boost the Cognitive and critical thinking of students. Skills are better learnt through Competitions than through academic exercise 3. Gamified platforms Students love games and games are dominating their ecosystem today more than anything else. Subscribe to games that boost these skills and it will work like magic. Meenakshi will take it from here by 8pm as she handles HOTSAT and answer more questions regarding the Competition this holiday. Please let's be online by 8pm to give her a good welcome and get the best from her session. She will still be hosting us in GESS/SGI Dubai by November this year by God's grace.
