21st Century Skills & P21

Hi all! Today's topic is on 21st century skills and Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

What exactly are 21st century skills?

If you're not exactly sure what 21st century skills are, you're at the right place! 21st century skills are so very important in K-12 education, and it is very beneficial for you if you understand what they are. 21st century skills can be described as knowledge or skills that are necessary for one to succeed in today's world. So yes, 21st century skills are super important! 21st century skills are broken down into three categories: learning skills, literacy skills, and life skills. The learning skills are critical thinking, creative thinking, collaborating, and communicating. These sound pretty important, huh? Well, they sure are! The literacy skills are information literacy, media literacy, and technology literacy. The life skills are flexibility, initiative, social skills, productivity, and leadership.

When you think about it, all of these items are very important in the workforce. As an employer you would want someone who can think critically, is technologically savvy,  can communicate and collaborate, is flexible, has good social skills, and possesses leadership qualities.

In preparation to help students develop their 21st century skills, an organization called P21, or Partnership for 21st Century Skills, was created in 2002. If you have never heard of this organization, don't worry, you can learn about it now! P21 is an organization that was created to bring together the business field, education leaders, and policy makers to recognize that 21st century skills should earn a place in K-12 education. It is an awesome organization that helps student develop the skills they need to succeed in society. They also provide resources to educators to make sure students gain the necessary 21st century skills. You can learn more about it here!

Now, I want to talk to you briefly about a report that was done in 2006. It is called Are They Really Ready to Work. This report surveyed employers about workers with a high school diploma, a two-year or technical degree, and a four-year university degree. If you read this, you will definitely understand why our students need to be taught 21st century skills. I'm going to give you a few findings of the report, but I won't go too much in depth. I would definitely recommend checking it out yourself!

• A majority of employers view reading comprehension and English language as very important basic skills for job success for new workforce entrants at all education levels

• When asked about applied skills for job success, employers ranked professionalism, communications, teamwork, and critical thinking among the top five most important for new workforce entrants at all education levels   

• Very few of the employers that were surveyed rated the skills of new entrants with a high school diploma as "excellent"

• Majority of those surveyed ranked skills of new entrants with a two-year college degree or technical school diploma as "adequate"

• For new entrants with a four-year college diploma, however, readiness on several skills was rated as "excellent"

• Critical thinking/problem solving, information technology application, creativity/innovation, and diversity are the top five knowledge and skills expected to increase in importance over the next five years

• Employers rated leadership "deficient" among high school educated entrants, but less than one-third considered it a very important quality

• 70.3% of surveyed employers reported that professionalism/work ethic among recently hired high school graduates was deficient (Surveyed employers also said that this is a very important quality!!!)

• English is the most frequently reported basic academic skill deficiency among high school graduates, and it is second most frequently reported among two-year and four-year college graduates   

• Written communications is the most frequently reported applied skill deficiency for all three educational levels

Like I said, this is a very small portion of what the report found. It just goes to show that 21st century skills are important! I hope you have learned something interesting by this. Have a wonderful week!!!