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.