21st century skills

21st century skills comprise skills, abilities, and learning dispositions that have been identified as being required for success in 21st century society and workplaces by educators, business leaders, academics, and governmental agencies. This is part of a growing international movement focusing on the skills required for students to master in preparation for success in a rapidly changing, digital society. Many of these skills are also associated with deeper learning, which is based on mastering skills such as analytic reasoning, complex problem solving, and teamwork. These skills differ from traditional academic skills in that they are not primarily content knowledge-based. 21st century skills comprise skills, abilities, and learning dispositions that have been identified as being required for success in 21st century society and workplaces by educators, business leaders, academics, and governmental agencies. This is part of a growing international movement focusing on the skills required for students to master in preparation for success in a rapidly changing, digital society. Many of these skills are also associated with deeper learning, which is based on mastering skills such as analytic reasoning, complex problem solving, and teamwork. These skills differ from traditional academic skills in that they are not primarily content knowledge-based. During the latter decades of the 20th century and into the 21st century, society has undergone an accelerating pace of change in economy and technology. Its effects on the workplace, and thus on the demands on the educational system preparing students for the workforce, have been significant in several ways. Beginning in the 1980s, government, educators, and major employers issued a series of reports identifying key skills and implementation strategies to steer students and workers towards meeting the demands of the changing workplace and society. The current workforce is significantly more likely to change career fields or jobs. Those in the Baby Boom generation entered the workforce with a goal of stability; subsequent generations are more concerned with finding happiness and fulfillment in their work lives. Young workers in North America are now likely to change jobs at a much higher rate than previously, as much as once every 4.4 years on average. With this employment mobility comes a demand for different skills, ones that enable people to be flexible and adaptable in different roles or in different career fields. As western economies have transformed from industrial-based to service-based, trades and vocations have smaller roles. However, specific hard skills and mastery of particular skill sets, with a focus on digital literacy, are in increasingly high demand. People skills that involve interaction, collaboration, and managing others are increasingly important. Skills that enable people to be flexible and adaptable in different roles or in different fields, those that involve processing information and managing people more than manipulating equipment—in an office or a factory—are in greater demand. These are also referred to as 'applied skills' or 'soft skills', including personal, interpersonal, or learning-based skills, such as life skills (problem-solving behaviors), people skills, and social skills. The skills have been grouped into three main areas: Many of these skills are also identified as key qualities of progressive education, a pedagogical movement that began in the late nineteenth century and continues in various forms to the present. Since the early 1980s, a variety of governmental, academic, non-profit, and corporate entities have conducted considerable research to identify key personal and academic skills and competencies they determined were needed for the current and next generation. The identification and implementation of 21st century skills into education and workplaces began in the United States but has spread to Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and through national and international organizations such as APEC and the OECD. In 1981, the US Secretary of Education created the National Commission on Excellence in Education to examine the quality of education in the United States.' The commission issued its report A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform in 1983. A key finding was that 'educational reform should focus on the goal of creating a Learning Society.' The report's recommendations included instructional content and skills: Five New Basics: English, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, Computer ScienceOther Curriculum Matters: Develop proficiency, rigor, and skills in Foreign Languages, Performing Arts, Fine Arts, Vocational Studies, and the pursuit of higher level education.Skills and abilities (consolidated): Until the dawn of the 21st century, education systems across the world focussed on preparing their students to accumulate content and knowledge. As a result, schools focussed on providing literacy and numeracy skills to their students, as these skills were perceived as necessary to gain content and knowledge. Recent developments in technology and telecommunication have made information and knowledge ubiquitous and easily accessible in the 21st century. Therefore, while skills such as literacy and numeracy are still relevant and necessary, they are no longer sufficient. In order to respond to technological, demographic and socio-economic changes, education systems began to make the shift toward providing their students with a range of skills that relied not only on cognition but also on the interdependencies of cognitive, social, and emotional characteristics.