Building 21st Century Skills: What Role Should Educators and Employers Play?

What will the workforce of the mid-twenty first century look like, and what kinds of skills will be required to thrive in this new environment?

These questions appear increasingly urgent with the rise of automation, with the fear that many longstanding white-collar jobs will be replaced by artificial intelligence and machines.

Several groups, including the World Economic Forum, the Foundation for Young Australians, the Institute for the Future, and Deloitte, have produced lists of generic skills anticipated to be necessary for most jobs. These lists include numerous transferrable skills, including communication, teamwork, problem-solving, critical thinking and creativity. Some refer to more specific skill sets, such as digital literacy. Implicit in these lists is an imperative for educators to help their students to develop these skills to be career ready.

At first blush, there is nothing particularly wrong with the items on these lists. Few would argue that such generic skills are not useful, or that educators should not help their students to develop these capabilities.

However, it is difficult for educators to teach these skills in a context-free way. For instance, what counts as good communication in one context (e.g., working effectively with team members) may not translate well to another context (e.g., resolving conflict or delivering a presentation).

Moreover, some of the generic skills on each list—particularly creativity and critical thinking—tend to emerge as the product of deep expertise in a domain. For instance, it would be difficult for a non-scientist to critique a technical paper, or an intern to develop a solution to a complex business problem. Significant creative contributions in a domain—whether art, science, or technical—are almost always made by people who have spent years developing their expertise.

A second objection to such lists is that they are entirely focused on individuals, as opposed to teams or work units. It is unrealistic to think that all people can be good at everything. For instance, some commentators have argued that coding will become a vital skill. It would probably be more effective for most organisations to focus on composing multidisciplinary teams, rather than expecting all team members to be multi-skilled.

Creativity is seldom the product of a single talented individual. Rather, successful creativity involves both an idea generation and implementation process, and both stages involve collaborating effectively with other people to ensure that good ideas are realised.

What should schools and employers do instead?

When employers call for generic skills, what they are really asking for is effective transfer of learning, which is the ability to apply a learned skill in an unfamiliar setting. For instance, students may learn mathematics in the classroom but have trouble applying the same principles to an accounting or programming problem. Alternatively, if a student is able to generalise that knowledge, they will be able to apply the skill in a range of different contexts.

A well-designed, student-centred curriculum is the key to helping students to develop a flexible knowledge base that can be applied to different contexts. As much as possible, learning tasks should be authentic and resemble real-world problems. In developing such tasks, educators should be open to seeking advice from or collaborating with community groups or business. Like a real workplace, students should have opportunities to work both in teams and individually.

Educators should choose learning tasks that are well-matched to their students’ current knowledge levels. Beginners tend to benefit more from well-structured examples or tasks with a clear process. Conversely, advanced students benefit from more open-ended tasks that require creativity, critical thinking or problem-solving.

Providing variations in learning tasks, such as requiring students to compose different genres of writing, is also fundamental to developing a flexible knowledge base. Educators should also work closely with students to provide rich feedback to help students develop their capabilities.

Schools are often (unfairly) accused of killing creativity, or at the very least, failing to nurture creative potential. Many of these criticisms are misplaced, as schools and universities play a vital role in teaching foundational skills—including basic reading, writing, and mathematics—that are necessary for most careers. However, schools should complement these activities by offering a diverse curriculum to help students identify their interests and provide introductory knowledge across a range of more specific skills.

Beyond the classroom, educators need to prepare students to become effective self-directed learners once their formal education has ended. They should be upfront about the fact that people will need to acquire new knowledge and skills over the course of their careers.

At an individual level, this involves encouraging students to engage in a range of informal learning activities, such as self-study, exchanging knowledge with peers, seeking feedback, joining a community of practice, and locating a suitable mentor. Educators also should instil the virtue of making mistakes in the pursuit of mastery and provide supportive environments for people to challenge themselves.

At a societal level, we should provide people with the means to easily update their knowledge and skills. Universities, TAFEs, and online educational providers such as Open Universities Australia, will play an invaluable role in maintaining a skilled workforce. Moreover, employers can play an important role in increasing their employees’ capabilities by providing opportunities for mentoring, knowledge exchange among colleagues, and task variety (e.g., through job rotations).

Finally, the issue of changing work should be seen through a broader lens than merely skill acquisition. An old mentor of mine once lamented that people are willing to visit a financial planner to manage their assets, yet reluctant to visit a career advisor to help them find gratifying work in an ever-changing labour market. Given the importance of work, educators and career counsellors should help people to understand their strengths and values and pursue careers that make a meaningful contribution to society.