ONLINE BOOK REPORTING_WEEK9 Chapter5

Reading report week 9 Part3: Natasha Ikhsan (M1)

What are priorities in skill development agenda in this digital era?

The following passage is a summary of World Development Report 2016: Digital Dividends page 258-272.

 

Fast-changing world, same education systems

In today’s fast-changing labor market, our education systems remained the same as they were a hundred years ago. The skills set that is required to succeed in the labor is changing, but today’s education systems are failing to keep up. Employers wherever they are in the world, demand for workers who are good at working in teams, problem-solvers, critical thinkers, and good presenters. It means that education systems should shift their focus from basic cognitive skills such as literacy and numeracy to high-order cognitive, socioemotional, and technical skills. Basic cognitive skills are enough to succeed in the old labor markets, but in today’s world, they should serve as solid foundation to advance to new skills mix. Ironically, in many countries, education systems are still struggling to provide even basic skills.

Digital technologies inevitably catalyze the rate of labor market changes, creating new opportunities, yet also making skills outdated more quickly. This undoubtedly demands for adaptability from institutions and individuals. The two transformations resulted from the changing labor markets – skills set changes and rapid skills obsolescence – indeed have profound implications for the skill development agenda

Priorities for a skill development agenda in 21st century

Skill development agenda should be adjusted to countries’ context, whether the countries have already developed strong foundational skills or whether they still need to work on the basic. Skill development is a cumulative process meaning that basic literacy and a strong foundation of socioemotional skills are prerequisite before developing technical and high-order cognitive skills.

In emerging digital countries such as Nepal and Senegal, the basic skills remain weak with gaps in foundational cognitive, socioemotional skills, and basic digital literacy. Transitioning countries such as Sri Lanka and Ukraine have done pretty well on the skill base, but they face a new challenge to keep up with the new skills set demand especially high-order skills. Transforming countries including Republic of Korea and Czech Republic, should think more about advanced technical skills such as in ICT and STEM. And as they are mostly aging societies, they also need to prioritize lifelong learning.

Priorities for emerging countries: develop solid foundational cognitive and socioemotional skills

It is important to build foundational cognitive and socioemotional skills before specializing too narrowly. And digital technology can help develop these foundational skills at least in these five applications: connecting teachers to contents, making learning more personalized, supplementing materials learned in schools, facilitating and promoting students’ collaboration and engagement, and promoting adult literacy.

Digital technologies can bridge students with qualified teachers from abroad when local teachers do not have the needed skills. For instance, in Uruguay English is taught online to first graders by teachers from the Philippines. Digital technologies can also make learning easier and enable students move through material at their own pace. Khan academy is a good example as it provides a supplemental educational resource where students anywhere can access and learn on their own as well as take assessments.

Digital tools help reinforce learning, for example, through educational games. In India, a math learning program which is delivered through computer games was reported to have positive impacts on students’ academic performance. Another promising use of technology is facilitating collaborative programs between students and teachers through fun and effective games or game-based learning. At its simplest, they can make textbook materials more engaging by enriching the content with videos and animations.

However, the application of technology in education systems alone, without improvements on teacher training and changes in pedagogy will not improve the learning process. It is true that technology is only a tool and does not substitute for teachers. High-quality education always depends on high-quality teachers. Governments can play an important role in promoting the investments in programs to leverage educational technology that is emphasized on training teachers in the use of technology and how to incorporate it in the classroom.

In digital era where technologies are at the heart of everything, digital literacy, just like reading and writing, is a new foundational skill. The main challenge, however, is how to expand the digital literacy beyond the use of technologies to shift to the focus on how to include the ability of students to search for information and separate high-quality sources from low-quality. In many developing countries the greater challenge is to educate adults in low-literacy environments. For both youth and adults, digital training can be combined with e-entrepreneurship training to conduct business over the internet.

Priorities for transitioning countries: improve high-order cognitive and advanced socioemotional skills

In addition to foundational skills, today’s human capitals are required to use more critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork, communication, and creativity. These are higher skills which many traditional education systems fail to provide and can be applied across occupations. How can teachers and policy makers improve the learning environment that goes beyond rote learning and memorization?

A first step is to reform education teaching methods, shifting towards student-centered curricula with emphasis on new economy skills. Digital technologies can help foster higher-order cognitive and socioemotional skills in at least three areas’

  • Directly using digital tools/activities to promote critical thinking, teamwork, problem solving, and creativity.

For example, Scratch, a simple programming language for kids can help kids develop critical and algorithm thinking.

  • Delivering training in socioemotional skills.

Growth mind-set, grit lessons, and other socioemotional skills lessons could be delivered via videos and online modules.

  • Promoting teamwork and communication skills by bringing together diverse groups and breaking distance barriers.

European Schoolnet, for instance, has facilitated online connections between classrooms across borders. Social media can also be utilized to connect classrooms.

Priorities for transforming countries: focus on advanced technical skills and lifelong learning in aging societies

Unlike in emerging and transitioning countries, the skill base in transforming countries is relatively strong, they have to focus on more advanced technical skills. To fill gaps in advanced ICT skills and improve competitiveness in a growing industry, countries pay more attention to provide ICT skills training in their education systems. For example, in the UK and Estonia, coding as a subject has been introduced in the education curriculum. This can strengthen not only ICT skills but also critical thinking.

In addition to ICT skills, improving STEM education has become a major goal. A big challenge to face is the fact that women are much less likely than men to choose a STEM field in tertiary education. Addressing gender gap in STEM fields include providing girls with women role models, targeting girls for recruitment into STEM fields early in their education, giving incentives for recruitment and graduation of women in STEM fields, and working with employers to make working environment more gender-friendly.

In rapidly aging societies, workers (adults) must have high adaptability in rapidly changing labor markets where the skills learned in formal education risk getting obsolete. Continued retraining and upgrading their skills can help workers stay current and ensure their skills are relevant to recent technological developments. The students and adults have to learn how to learn and learn how to be a lifelong learner. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) can be promising tool for lifelong learning as they provide online courses that offer open enrollment, online assessment, and interactive forums. Some are free and some are with fees for getting certification. Despite their large potentials, there are questions about financial sustainability and the quality of online education due to lack of face-to-face interactions, the absence of feedback from educators, and lack of access to complex infrastructure such as laboratories.