Skills

 

What skills do we need to teach our children?  What skills will be essential for the workforce of the future?

We’re living through a time of great change, technology is transforming and disrupting industries, new jobs and roles are emerging and the skills required are changing too. According to research by the World Economic Forum, more than one in four adults reported a mismatch between their skills and those needed for their job role.

How do you teach and measure soft skills or ‘21st-century skills’ such as collaboration, problem-solving, creativity, critical thinking, people skills and good communication? If taught well, these skills could enable students to adapt to change more easily, gain a greater understanding of people and the world around them, and ultimately progress further in their chosen career. Soft skills take time to develop and are more complex in nature, but perhaps they’ll turn out to be more beneficial in the long term.

To compete in the future job market, workers – even those in occupations less directly affected by automation, will need to update their skillsets, a report from the World Economic Forum says. Which is why, in a fast-changing world, education and training jobs are expected to increase – at number six on the Future of Jobs report list of growth sectors.