Constant change

We live in such a different world today. One where information is available at a click of a button. A world where the phone we buy has the chance to be outdated in just 6 months. A world where almost 100 million new websites were added alone in 2013! Does this impact the kind of education our children need? Of course it does.

Our kids are educating themselves in a very complex world. A recent Forbes report showed that an executive changes his job every 4-5 years, therefore having around 15 different jobs over the course of their working lives. So much change will automatically require them to continuously learn new things and adapt their skills. Did you know that the top 10 jobs of today did not exist in 2004? As we progress, the world will continue to change, but only faster.

What does this mean? It means we really don’t know for what jobs we are currently educating our children – since they don’t yet exist. We don’t know the technologies they will work on, or the kinds of products they will need to invent. Hence we cannot teach them to qualify for a particular job. What we need to teach them are the skills that will help them adapt to any job.

What are these skills?

The skills they require are quite different from what was required 20 years ago. The skills we need today the most are the ability to adapt, think and innovate.

Millions of dollars have been spent on research around the skills needed for success today. The 21st century framework has been developed by some of the greatest minds in education, leading education institutions and organizations like Apple, Microsoft, Time Warner and Dell. This framework defines the skills required for success in today’s world.

21^st Century Framework

While our core subjects continue to be important, it is also essential to focus on certain key skills.

Learning and innovation skill

If world is constantly changing and information is available at a click of the button; it is not enough to just know! The skills that will separate a child from the crowd will be her/his ability to think out of the box, learn new things, communicate, innovate and collaborate.

Life Skills

It is critical that a child learns how to take a good idea, plan and then execute it successfully. This is where life skills such as – teamwork, leadership, time management and interpersonal skills come to play. We need to equip our children with these skills in their early years, as it gets tougher later in life.

Think! Change!

We should not be happy continuing to do what we did 20 years ago. We need to change with time. We need to change how we teach and what we teach. This is the only way we will be able to equip our children with the tools that are needed for success in today’s world.

 

Author: Gayatri Singh, Founder, Team Explore