{"id":1784,"date":"2018-09-21T02:35:45","date_gmt":"2018-09-21T02:35:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mymeakid.org\/?p=1784"},"modified":"2018-09-21T02:35:45","modified_gmt":"2018-09-21T02:35:45","slug":"these-countries-are-best-at-preparing-kids-for-the-jobs-of-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/contaminasian.com\/dir1\/these-countries-are-best-at-preparing-kids-for-the-jobs-of-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"These countries are best at preparing kids for the jobs of the future"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When asked which skills the children of today will need to develop to keep their jobs safe from automation, employers often highlight so-called \u201csoft skills\u201d, a suite of attributes that include social abilities like networking, communication, negotiation, team-building and problem-solving. At the root of these skills is how well a child gets on with others.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Now, an\u00a0analysis<\/a>\u00a0of the latest PISA report (Programme for International Student Assessment), which assesses how 15-year-olds in OECD countries are performing in science, mathematics and reading, has revealed the countries in which children are best at \u201ccollaborative problem-solving\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Asian countries Singapore, Japan and South Korea top the chart, with Canada, Estonia and Finland not far behind. Denmark, the United States and United Kingdom also make the top 10.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Thinking ahead<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The\u00a0Hamilton Project<\/a>, an economic research group that is part of the US think-tank the Brookings Institution, produced a report this year that found US hiring managers were worried about a lack of both \u201ccognitive\u201d skills, such as good understanding of maths and language, and \u201cnon-cognitive skills\u201d \u2013 ie the so-called \u201csoft skills\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The report explained: \u201cWhile fewer than 20% of hiring managers said that recent graduates lacked the math skills needed for the work, more than half said that recent graduates lacked attention to detail. About equal shares of hiring managers saw deficiencies in writing proficiency and communication \u2013 the cognitive and non-cognitive aspects, respectively, of a single skill. About a third of hiring managers said recent college graduates lacked data analysis and teamwork skills.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Image: Hamilton Project\/Brookings<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
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The Hamilton Project linked the rise in the demand for strong cognitive skills with future economic outcomes, saying that those who could develop them were more likely to be in full-time employment, while those who didn\u2019t were more likely to be in poorer-paid jobs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It also showed how jobs requiring strong manual and maths skills had been replaced over time by careers in services and work requiring stronger social skills.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The report said that while soft skills are to a certain extent innate, they can also be taught.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But is that really the case? And if so, just how easy are they to learn?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Soft skills and hard yards<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The World Economic Forum\u2019s\u00a0Future of Jobs report<\/a>\u00a02016 argued that by 2020: \u201cCreativity will become one of the top three skills workers will need. With the avalanche of new products, new technologies and new ways of working, [employees] are going to have to become more creative in order to benefit from these changes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But, whatever qualifications, experience or technical abilities today\u2019s job interviewees may possess, employers cannot necessarily count on them having the soft skills that are now required as soon as they walk through the door.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Image: Hamilton Project\/Brookings<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
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As an article on\u00a0TrainingMag.com<\/a>\u00a0pointed out: \u201cThere\u2019s a subtle irony in [the fact that] hard skills are relatively easy to learn, while soft skills are often hard to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It pointed out that \u201chard skills are specific, teachable abilities that include technical proficiencies and are easily defined and measurable. You usually obtain a degree or diploma when you have these skills, such as software programmer, mathematician, accountant, tool-and-die maker, forklift driver, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But it adds that soft skills are less tangible and harder to quantify. “There is no degree or diploma for soft skills. They\u2019re mostly learned through life experience on the job, such as active listening, interpersonal skills, knowing how to recognize people, and demonstrating caring concern.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Start \u2019em young<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Such skills are likely to be best acquired at an early age and the PISA analysis shows that some education systems are taking steps in the right direction.\u00a0Finland<\/a>\u00a0has already moved to a model where collaboration is part of the regular curriculum and France is eyeing similar moves as it shakes up its education system in an effort to boost economically deprived children.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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However, companies will probably have to recognize that while schools and universities should teach core skills, the burden of providing much of the life-long skills learning employees are going to need will fall on them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Image: Hamilton Project\/Brookings<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
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As\u00a0Vishal Sikka<\/a>, the former chief executive of Infosys, wrote in the Financial Times: \u201cCurriculums should be modernized to encourage creative problem finding and solving, and learning through doing, with mandatory computer science learning as the bedrock for enabling digital literacy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cOrganizations also need to make life-long learning resources available for employees to enhance skills development. Indeed, they should be required to dedicate a percentage of their annual revenue to reskilling staff.\u201d\"\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When asked which skills the children of today will need to develop to keep their jobs safe from automation, employers often highlight so-called \u201csoft skills\u201d, a suite of attributes that include social abilities like networking, communication, negotiation, team-building and problem-solving. At the root of these skills is how well a child gets on with others. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[34,32,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-frontpage-blog","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/contaminasian.com\/dir1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/contaminasian.com\/dir1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/contaminasian.com\/dir1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/contaminasian.com\/dir1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/contaminasian.com\/dir1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1784"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/contaminasian.com\/dir1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1786,"href":"https:\/\/contaminasian.com\/dir1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1784\/revisions\/1786"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/contaminasian.com\/dir1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/contaminasian.com\/dir1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/contaminasian.com\/dir1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/contaminasian.com\/dir1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}