essay on importance of education in 21st century

The turning point: Why we must transform education now

Global warming. Accelerated digital revolution. Growing inequalities. Democratic backsliding. Loss of biodiversity. Devastating pandemics. And the list goes on. These are just some of the most pressing challenges that we are facing today in our interconnected world.

The diagnosis is clear: Our current global education system is failing to address these alarming challenges and provide quality learning for everyone throughout life. We know that education today is not fulfilling its promise to help us shape peaceful, just, and sustainable societies. These findings were detailed in UNESCO’s Futures of Education Report in November 2021 which called for a new social contract for education.

That is why it has never been more crucial to reimagine the way we learn, what we learn and how we learn. The turning point is now. It’s time to transform education. How do we make that happen?

Here’s what you need to know. 

Why do we need to transform education?

The current state of the world calls for a major transformation in education to repair past injustices and enhance our capacity to act together for a more sustainable and just future. We must ensure the right to lifelong learning by providing all learners - of all ages in all contexts - the knowledge and skills they need to realize their full potential and live with dignity. Education can no longer be limited to a single period of one’s lifetime. Everyone, starting with the most marginalized and disadvantaged in our societies, must be entitled to learning opportunities throughout life both for employment and personal agency. A new social contract for education must unite us around collective endeavours and provide the knowledge and innovation needed to shape a better world anchored in social, economic, and environmental justice.  

What are the key areas that need to be transformed?

• Inclusive, equitable, safe and healthy schools

Education is in crisis. High rates of poverty, exclusion and gender inequality continue to hold millions back from learning. Moreover, COVID-19 further exposed the inequities in education access and quality, and violence, armed conflict, disasters and reversal of women’s rights have increased insecurity. Inclusive, transformative education must ensure that all learners have unhindered access to and participation in education, that they are safe and healthy, free from violence and discrimination, and are supported with comprehensive care services within school settings. Transforming education requires a significant increase in investment in quality education, a strong foundation in comprehensive early childhood development and education, and must be underpinned by strong political commitment, sound planning, and a robust evidence base.

• Learning and skills for life, work and sustainable development

There is a crisis in foundational learning, of literacy and numeracy skills among young learners. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, learning poverty has increased by a third in low- and middle-income countries, with an estimated 70% of 10-year-olds unable to understand a simple written text. Children with disabilities are 42% less likely to have foundational reading and numeracy skills compared to their peers. More than 771 million people still lack basic literacy skills, two-thirds of whom are women. Transforming education means empowering learners with knowledge, skills, values and attitudes to be resilient, adaptable and prepared for the uncertain future while contributing to human and planetary well-being and sustainable development. To do so, there must be emphasis on foundational learning for basic literacy and numeracy; education for sustainable development, which encompasses environmental and climate change education; and skills for employment and entrepreneurship.

• Teachers, teaching and the teaching profession

Teachers are essential for achieving learning outcomes, and for achieving SDG 4 and the transformation of education. But teachers and education personnel are confronted by four major challenges: Teacher shortages; lack of professional development opportunities; low status and working conditions; and lack of capacity to develop teacher leadership, autonomy and innovation. Accelerating progress toward SDG 4 and transforming education require that there is an adequate number of teachers to meet learners’ needs, and all education personnel are trained, motivated, and supported. This can only be possible when education is adequately funded, and policies recognize and support the teaching profession, to improve their status and working conditions.

• Digital learning and transformation

The COVID-19 crisis drove unprecedented innovations in remote learning through harnessing digital technologies. At the same time, the digital divide excluded many from learning, with nearly one-third of school-age children (463 million) without access to distance learning. These inequities in access meant some groups, such as young women and girls, were left out of learning opportunities. Digital transformation requires harnessing technology as part of larger systemic efforts to transform education, making it more inclusive, equitable, effective, relevant, and sustainable. Investments and action in digital learning should be guided by the three core principles: Center the most marginalized; Free, high-quality digital education content; and Pedagogical innovation and change.

• Financing of education

While global education spending has grown overall, it has been thwarted by high population growth, the surmounting costs of managing education during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the diversion of aid to other emergencies, leaving a massive global education financial gap amounting to US$ 148 billion annually. In this context, the first step toward transformation is to urge funders to redirect resources back to education to close the funding gap. Following that, countries must have significantly increased and sustainable financing for achieving SDG 4 and that these resources must be equitably and effectively allocated and monitored. Addressing the gaps in education financing requires policy actions in three key areas: Mobilizing more resources, especially domestic; increasing efficiency and equity of allocations and expenditures; and improving education financing data. Finally, determining which areas needs to be financed, and how, will be informed by recommendations from each of the other four action tracks .

What is the Transforming Education Summit?

UNESCO is hosting the Transforming Education Pre-Summit on 28-30 June 2022, a meeting of  over 140 Ministers of Education, as well as  policy and business leaders and youth activists, who are coming together to build a roadmap to transform education globally. This meeting is a precursor to the Transforming Education Summit to be held on 19 September 2022 at the UN General Assembly in New York. This high-level summit is convened by the UN Secretary General to radically change our approach to education systems. Focusing on 5 key areas of transformation, the meeting seeks to mobilize political ambition, action, solutions and solidarity to transform education: to take stock of efforts to recover pandemic-related learning losses; to reimagine education systems for the world of today and tomorrow; and to revitalize national and global efforts to achieve SDG-4.

• More on the Transforming Education Summit
• More on the Pre-Summit

Related items

• Future of education
• SDG: SDG 4 - Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

This article is related to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals .

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Essay on Importance Of Education In 21St Century

Students are often asked to write an essay on Importance Of Education In 21St Century in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Importance Of Education In 21St Century

Learning for the future.

Education is like a key. It opens doors to new ideas, jobs, and understanding the world. In the 21st century, learning new things is very important because jobs are changing fast. People who can read, write, and do math can adapt to new jobs easier.

Connecting with the World

School teaches us how to use computers and the internet. This helps us talk to people from anywhere and learn from them. Knowing how to use technology is very important today because it helps us find information and solve problems.

Being a Good Citizen

Education helps us make wise choices in life and voting. It teaches us about different cultures and how to respect them. Good schools help us learn how to work with others and be good members of society.

Personal Growth

When we learn, we grow. Education helps us understand ourselves better and what we are good at. It also gives us confidence to try new things, which is very important for everyone’s future.

250 Words Essay on Importance Of Education In 21St Century

The need for education today.

Education is very important in our lives. Think of it like a key that opens the door to the world of opportunities. In the 21st century, the world is changing fast. To keep up, we need to learn new things all the time.

Jobs and Skills

Long ago, many jobs needed strong hands or the ability to do the same thing over and over. Now, we need people who can think, solve problems, and use computers. Schools teach us these skills so we can do well in modern jobs.

Technology and Learning

We use technology, like phones and computers, every day. Education helps us understand how to use these tools safely and wisely. It also shows us how to create new things with technology that can make life better.

Understanding Each Other

Our world has many different people. Education teaches us about other cultures and places. This helps us work and live together in peace. It also makes us curious to learn more about the world.

Health and Well-being

When we learn, we find out how to take care of our health. Schools tell us about good food, exercise, and how to stay away from sickness. This knowledge is very important for a happy life.

Education is a light that shows us the way to a bright future. It is more than just reading and math. It is about learning how to live well, work with others, and understand the world. We need education now more than ever to keep up with the fast changes and have a good life in the 21st century.

500 Words Essay on Importance Of Education In 21St Century

Why education matters today.

Education is like a key that opens many doors to different rooms of opportunities in life. In the 21st century, this key has become even more important. Our world is changing fast. We have new technology, ways of talking to each other from far away, and jobs that did not exist before. To do well in this world, learning and going to school is very important.

Learning New Skills

Today, we need to know how to use computers and the internet. Many jobs ask for these skills. School teaches us how to read, write, and do math, but it also teaches us how to learn new things. When we know how to learn, we can keep getting better at our jobs or even start new ones.

Understanding the World

The world is full of different people and ideas. Education helps us understand these differences. We learn about history, science, and cultures. This knowledge makes us smarter and helps us get along with others. It also helps us make the world a better place by solving problems like pollution and diseases.

Getting Good Jobs

To get a good job, we need to have a good education. Many jobs that pay well ask for at least a high school diploma. Some jobs need even more school, like college or university. With a good education, we can choose from many jobs and find one that we like and that pays us enough money.

Building Confidence

When we learn and do well in school, we feel good about ourselves. We become more confident. This confidence helps us in everything we do, from speaking in front of people to trying new things. Being confident can lead us to be leaders and make good changes in the world.

Staying Healthy

Education also teaches us how to take care of our bodies. We learn about good food, exercise, and how to stay away from sickness. People who have more education often live longer and are happier. They know how to make good choices for their health.

Helping Each Other

When we are educated, we can help others. We can teach them what we know. We can also help people who are not as lucky as we are. Education gives us the power to make a difference in other people’s lives.

In short, education in the 21st century is very important. It helps us get good jobs, understand the world, and live a better life. It is not just about books and tests. It is about growing up to be smart, kind, and ready to help make the world a better place for everyone. So, let’s keep learning and growing every day!

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How to Thrive in the 21st Century

• Posted November 22, 2016
• By Heather Beasley Doyle

When Fernando Reimers , a professor of international education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), talks and writes about what he wants children around the world to learn, the conversation runs deep and reaches far. Individual success, he says, increasingly depends upon students’ interpersonal dexterity, creativity, and ability to innovate. And our collective success — our ability to navigate complexities and to build and sustain a peaceful world — also hinges on these kinds of skills. Together, these skills form the basis of an emerging set of core competencies that will influence education policy and practice around the world.

In Teaching and Learning for the Twenty-First Century , Reimers and his co-editor, HGSE lecturer Connie K. Chung , explore how school systems in six countries are defining and supporting these global competencies. Their aim is to develop a shared framework for promoting the skills students will need in order to thrive as global citizens in a sustainable world in the decades ahead.

“Young people are in a context where they’re saturated and inundated with issues from around the world,” says Chung. Between new technologies, multiplying media, and layers of intercontinental connection, “global citizenship education is a ‘must have’ and not a ‘nice to have’ — for everyone,” says Chung.

Reimers and Chung used the National Research Council’s 2012 report, Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century , as a jumping off point for their investigation of policies and curricula that are best positioned to nurture global citizens. That report (read the research brief here) identifies three broad domains of competence: cognitive, intrapersonal, and interpersonal. “This is not just talking about knowledge,” says Chung. Rather, it includes such strengths as intercultural literacy, self-discipline, and flexibility in social and work domains.

The Cognitive Competencies

As Chung suggests, the 21st-century global citizen’s cognitive skill set includes traditional, testable basics such as math and literacy, but extends beyond that to encompass a particularly strong emphasis on the world in which we live. “Current events highlight some of the fears around otherness,” she says. The key to informed citizenship is getting to know other cultures — and valuing them.

In addition to rounding out kids’ knowledge base to include a nuanced understanding of world geography and cultures , schools must teach them the skills to use this knowledge as active and engaged citizens.

That means being able to:

• Communicate effectively and listen actively
• Use evidence and assess information
• Speak at least one language beyond one’s native tongue
• Think critically and analyze local and global issues, challenges, and opportunities
• Reason logically and interpret clearly
• Become and remain digitally literate, including the ability to “weigh and judge the validity of the content that’s in front of you,” Chung says.

In some ways, digital literacy is a linchpin of the other competencies. “Technology gives us humans the possibility to collaborate in ways that are unprecedented, to think and produce things no one could produce individually,” Reimers says.

The Interpersonal Competencies

Empathy is a cornerstone 21st-century global competency. We’re all familiar with empathy between individuals: someone’s hurt, and another person deeply understands the pain. But Reimers and Chung envision the concept on a global scale. Empathy resides in the ability to consider the complexity of issues , Chung says — in an interconnected worldview that recognizes that “what we do impacts someone else.”

Anchored in tolerance and respect for other people, interpersonal intelligence breaks down into several overlapping skills, including:

• Collaboration
• Teamwork and cooperation
• Leadership and responsibility
• Assertive communication
• Social influence

As Reimers says, “We need to make sure that we can get along, and that we can see our differences as an opportunity, as a source of strength.” Both regionally and nationally, students need the skills to transcend the limits of fragmentation, “where people can only relate to those who they perceive to be like them.”

The Intrapersonal Competencies

A particular blend of honed personal characteristics underpins the cognitive and intrapersonal competencies. Reimers points to an ethical orientation and strong work and mind habits, including self-regulation and intellectual openness , as traits that 21st-century educators must nurture in their students.

The world is less predictable than it used to be: “People know that half of the jobs that are going to be around 10 years from now have not been invented,” Reimers says. That means teaching young people in such a way that makes them flexible and adaptable . It means enabling them to think of themselves as creators and inventors who feel comfortable taking the initiative and persevering — the skills necessary for starting one’s own business, for example.

Instilling in students the value of thinking beyond the short term will give them the best chance to tackle some of the world’s most daunting challenges, including climate change. For example, educators in Singapore were challenged to imagine their country not five, 10, or 15 years down the road, but 30 years in the future, Chung says. Encouraging students to think on that kind of a time scale helps them to grasp the reverberations of their actions and decisions.

Values, Attitudes, and Moving to Pedagogy

In Teaching and Learning for the Twenty-First Century  (which has been published in Chinese, Portuguese, and Spanish editions as well), Reimers, Chung, and global colleagues interviewed education researchers and stakeholders in Chile (in a chapter by Cristián Bellei and Liliana Morawietz), China (by Yan Wang), India (by Aditya Natraj, Monal Jayaram, Jahnavi Contractor, and Payal Agrawal), Mexico (by Sergio Cárdenas), Singapore (by Oon-Seng Tan and Ee-Ling Low), and the United States (by Chung and Reimers). They explored curriculum frameworks, seeking to understand how values and attitudes unique to each country and region were informing policy goals and ultimately shaping students’ learning opportunities.

Drawing on that survey of 21st-century competencies and the frameworks for their support, Reimers, Chung, and their digitally connected global network of educators are now teasing out a pedagogy for educators everywhere. Reimers and Chung co-authored (with Vidur Chopra, Julia Higdon, and E.B. O’Donnell) another new book, Empowering Global Citizens, which lays out a K–12 curriculum for global citizenship education called The World Course. Its aim is to position students and communities to thrive amid globalization — to lead, to steward, and to safeguard this complex world in the current century and beyond.

Additional Resources

• The Think Tank on Global Education , a professional education program with Fernando Reimers that invites teachers to experiment with a new curriulum on empowering global citizens
• The Global Education Innovation Initiative , a multi-country exploration of education for the 21st century, led by Reimers
• The introduction [PDF] of Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century , which describes the rationale for the book’s comparative study
• Fifteen Letters on Education in Singapore , in which U.S. educators visit Singapore to learn how that country’s education innovations have fueled a prosperous knowledge economy — and what lessons may apply. (Available as a f ree Kindle book .)
• Reflections on turning students into global citizens
• Creating a Course for the World  (a Harvard EdCast exploring the new global curriculum)

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21st Century Education

At GEII we look at education for the 21 st century in the following ways:

See 21st Century Education in Action

Competencies in the Intrapersonal Domain

1) Intellectual Openness, including:

Flexibility, adaptability, artistic and cultural appreciation, personal and social responsibility, cultural awareness and competence, appreciation for diversity, adaptability, continuous learning, intellectual interest and curiosity

2) Work Ethic & Conscientiousness, including:

a. Initiative, self-direction, responsibility, perseverance, grit; productivity, type 1 self-regulation (metacognitive skills, including forethought, performance, and self-reflection), professionalism/ ethics; integrity; citizenship, career orientation

b. Positive Core Self-Evaluation, including: i. Type 2 self-regulation (self-monitoring, self-evaluation, self-reinforcement), physical and psychological health

For more about this domain, please see National Research Council. Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century . Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2012. doi:10.17226/13398 .

Competencies in the Interpersonal Domain

1) Teamwork & Collaboration, including:

Communication, collaboration, teamwork, cooperation, coordination, interpersonal skills, empathy/perspective taking, trust, service orientation, conflict resolution, negotiation

2) Leadership, including:

Leadership, responsibility, assertive communication, self-presentation, social influence with others

Competencies in the Cognitive Domain

1) Cognitive Processes & Strategies, including:

Critical thinking, problem solving, analysis, reasoning and argumentation, interpretation, decision making, adaptive learning, and executive function

2) Knowledge, including:

Information literacy, including research using evidence and recognizing bias in sources; information and communication technology literacy, oral and written communication, active listening

3) Creativity, including:

Creativity and innovation

Values and Attitudes

The values and attitudes cultivated in participants by each program will vary by country, region, philosophies, and other social and cultural factors. However, as values and attitudes are central to developing a person’s character and shaping the beliefs, attitudes, decisions and actions of a person, we felt it was important to ask each organization included on our website to explicitly name the particular values and attitudes they seek to nurture in their program participants.

There are many sources about what kind of values, and we note that they vary according to different contexts. One document might be a helpful resource among many is the following by Margaret Sinclair titled, “ Learning to Live Together: Building Skills, Values, and Attitudes for the 21st Century ” published in 2005 by the International Bureau of Education: 

Active, Engaging, and Empowering Pedagogy

21st Century pedagogy includes a focus on active, engaging, and empowering learning. Personalization, participation, and learning through authentic real-world contexts, solving problems creatively, developing projects from the beginning to the end, working collaboratively with peers and mentors, with a focus on developing metacognitive abilities, adapting and applying new knowledge while integrating it into existing conceptual frameworks are all examples of powerful pedagogy.

For more on this topic, please see this working paper from UNESCO (December, 2015) by Cynthia Luna Scott, titled, “ What Kind of Pedagogies for the 21st Century? ” among many others: 

• Who is doing it?
• How are they selected?

Education assessment in the 21st century: Moving beyond traditional methods

Subscribe to the center for universal education bulletin, esther care and esther care former nonresident senior fellow - global economy and development , center for universal education @care_esther alvin vista alvin vista former brookings expert @alvin_vista.

February 23, 2017

This blog is part of a four-part series on shifting educational measurement to match 21st century skills, covering traditional assessments , new technologies , new skillsets , and pathways to the future . These topics were discussed at the Center for Universal Education’s Annual Research and Policy Symposium on April 5, 2017 .  You can watch video from the event or listen to audio here .

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) describe the target of achieving inclusive and quality education for all by 2030. As we work to accomplish this goal, we must also face the bigger challenge of not only identifying where children can access education, but how they can benefit from access—an imprecise target. From the perspective of educational measurement, to what extent are we ready and able to assess progress in terms of quality of education?

Traditional educational measurement

When we think about tests in schools, we often picture students shuffling papers at their desks. They fill in short answers to questions, respond to multiple-choice style options, or write brief essays. The majority of their cognitive effort is focused on searching their memory to find appropriate responses to the test items, or applying formulae to familiar problems. This style of educational assessment targets the types of skills that were seen as important throughout the 20th century—the skills of storing relevant information and retrieving it upon demand, often as these processes related to literacy and numeracy.

However, from a measurement perspective, the issues are more complex. Meaningful measurement requires defining what one intends to measure, as well as a consistent system to define the magnitude of what is being measured. This is straightforward for physical measurements, such as weight in pounds and height in inches, but not for cognitive measurements. Although we have been assessing numeracy and literacy skills for over a hundred years, measuring these skills is not as simple as it seems.

Measuring human attributes

Numeracy and literacy are “made-up” concepts. These concepts (known as “constructs” in academic literature) are not tangible objects that can easily be measured by their weight or height. These constructs lack inherent measurement properties independent of human definition. This presents educators with a dilemma. We need to assess student-learning outcomes in order to know what students are ready to learn next. Historically we have relied upon numbers to communicate learning outcomes; however, numbers that are easily applied to properties that exist independently of humans, such as mass and length, do not translate so easily with regard to human characteristics.

When we think about learning or skills, we assume underlying competencies are responsible for particular behaviors. But we cannot see these competencies; we can only see their outcomes. So if we are to measure those competencies, we must examine the outcomes in order to estimate their amount, degree, or quality. This is the challenge: with a huge variety of ways in which competencies might manifest, how do we define a scale to measure outcomes in a way that has consistent meaning? An inch is always an inch, but what is viewed as a correct answer to a question may vary. So what we look for in measurement of these educational constructs are proxies—something that stands for what we are really interested in.

Using proxy measurements

We use proxy measures for many things, physical as well as conceptual. For example, in forensic science, when skeletons are incomplete, the height can be estimated using the length of the arm or leg . These proxies work well, as opposed to say teeth, because they are reasonably accurate and relate closely with height. The quality of our measurements are therefore very much dependent on the quality of the proxies we choose.

Student responses on educational tests are proxies for their competencies and learning, and different types of proxies will be better or worse at revealing the quality of competencies. Here is the crunch: What sorts of proxies are most useful for each skill or competency, and how do we collect these?

The future of educational assessment

Through the last few decades, pen and paper tests have been the main method used to assess educational outcomes. For literacy and numeracy, this makes reasonable sense, since the learning outcome can be demonstrated in much the same way as the applied skill itself is typically demonstrated. However, for other skills of increasing interest in the education world—such as problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity—this is less the case.

The challenge is how to proceed from the status quo, where system-level assessment using traditional tests is still seen as using good-enough proxies of academic skill, and where testing processes are implemented using traditional methods that everyone finds convenient, systematic, and cost-effective. In addition, increasing interest in education systems’ implementation of 21st century skills raises new hurdles. If we are interested in supporting students’ acquisition of these skills, we need assessment methods that make the skills themselves explicit—in other words, we need to look for new proxies.

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EDUCATION IN THE 21st CENTURY

07 Sep EDUCATION IN THE 21st CENTURY

The value of a 21st century education.

Success looks different now than it did in the past. High-achieving people are frequently choosing to opt out of the traditional job market and create their own jobs. Successful people increasingly expect to be able to:

• Live and work anywhere in the world
• Travel as often as they like, for as long as they like
• Change what they’re working on to keep up with their interests and abilities
• Enjoy earning potential that is not capped by a salary figure
• Work with peers across the globe
• Outsource things they don’t like doing
• Choose their own hours and office

For people who don’t live like this it can sound far-fetched, but this kind of lifestyle is growing rapidly. What does it take to access and thrive with this kind of freedom? The answer is surprisingly simple, and can be best summed up as ‘a 21st century education’.

20TH CENTURY EDUCATION

In the preface to the 2011 revised edition of his book ‘Out of Our Minds’, Sir Ken Robinson observes that ‘The more complex the world becomes, the more creative we need to be to meet its challenges’, and this is becoming increasingly clear in education and the workplace. People now need to be creative to be successful, but while the idea of success has changed, the education system has not always adjusted its methods or goals to meet it.

A 20th century education emphasised compliance and conformity over creativity, two skills that were necessary to do well in a professional or corporate environment and to hold down a good job for decades. Compliance and conformity are now a relic, but they are still key values in many schools, informing policy even when not being expressly promoted to students.

In his book ‘Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon?’, educational thought leader Yong Zhao warns, “National standards and national curriculum, enforced by high-stakes testing, can at best teach students what is prescribed… As a result, students talented in other areas never have the opportunity to discover those talents. Students with broader interests are discouraged, not rewarded. The system results in a population with similar skills in a narrow spectrum of talents. But especially in today’s society, innovation and creativity are needed in many areas, some as yet undiscovered.”

Unfortunately, most students continue to be educated in the same way as they were in the past, being taught a standardised curriculum through rote learning and individualised testing, at a one-size-fits-all pace. Far too many students are struggling to learn because they are disengaged and lack motivation. Why go to school when you could learn the same information faster by watching a Youtube video or playing a computer game? Why memorise facts for a test when you have all the information in the palm of your hand anyway? Past methods make little sense to today’s students who learn and think differently, and they make little sense in relation to the changing workplace, where making use of information is now far more valuable than simply knowing things. Schools are failing to teach students to respond to rapid change and how to handle new information because they are clinging to obsolete methods.

21ST CENTURY STUDENTS

Generation Z – born between 1995 and 2009 – most do not remember life without the internet, and have had technology like smartphones, iPads, smartboards and other devices available throughout most of their schooling. Generation Alpha – born since 2010 – they are younger than smartphones, the iPad, 3D television, Instagram, and music streaming apps like Spotify. This is the first generation likely to see in the 22nd century in large numbers.

Growing up with this level of technology means growing up with a completely unprecedented amount of information at your fingertips. There are kids who have never been more than a few seconds away from the answers to their questions, with everything just a quick search away. They are able to teach themselves about any topic they are interested in without even leaving their bedroom.The current cohort of students come from Generation Z and Generation Alpha. These two generations have grown up with advanced technology as a given in their homes and classrooms. They are digital natives, as comfortable using apps and code as their grandparents were flipping pages.

Generations Z and Alpha are also the most internationally connected in history. They encounter people online from all over the world, and can easily make friends on the other side of the planet before they have even left their home state. Schools and parents are also increasingly offering children and young people the opportunity to travel, creating a truly borderless experience of learning.

The students in our schools today are intelligent, independent and extremely capable. They are skilled with technology and comfortable with global and intercultural communication. We can expect that future generations are going to have even more experience in these areas.

A 21ST CENTURY EDUCATION

A 21st century education is about giving students the skills they need to succeed in this new world, and helping them grow the confidence to practice those skills. With so much information readily available to them, 21st century skills focus more on making sense of that information, sharing and using it in smart ways.

The coalition P21 (Partnership for 21st Century Learning) has identified four ‘Skills for Today’ :

• Critical thinking
• Communication
• Collaboration

These four themes are not to be understood as units or even subjects, but as themes that should be overlaid across all curriculum mapping and strategic planning. They should be part of every lesson in the same way as literacy and numeracy.

Creativity is about thinking through information in new ways, making new connections and coming up with innovative solutions to problems. Critical thinking is about analysing information and critiquing claims. Communication is understanding things well enough to share them clearly with other people. Collaboration is about teamwork and the collective genius of a group that is more than the sum of its parts.

There are other skills that are important, which fall within these four areas. Entrepreneurship can be considered a skill of its own. Inquiry and problem solving are key. Emotional intelligence (EQ) is one of the most important keys to successful work and relationships. The bottom line? Education needs to be all about empowering students with transferable skills that will hold up to a rapidly changing world, not prescribed content that has been chosen for its past relevance.

DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY

While digital integration is also fundamental to a thorough 21st century education, it is not enough to simply add technology to existing teaching methods. Technology must be used strategically to benefit students. Students are increasingly advanced users of technology even as they enter school for the first time, so this can often mean being open to the possibilities presented rather than attempting to teach and prescribe the use of certain programs. Many a classroom ‘technology class’ has baffled children by attempting to teach them about programs, websites and hardware that are no longer relevant or that they understand far better than the teacher does.

INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION

21st century schools are also responding to demand by moving into international education. ISC Research have tracked these changes in their research. In the past, international schools were primarily for the families of military personnel and diplomats. In the year 2000 there were 2,500 international schools globally with fewer than one million students attending, but in December 2016 there were over 8,600 international schools with almost 4.5 million students. The vast majority of these students are now local children hoping to attend university in the West. Schools which aren’t traditional ‘international schools’ are also striving to create an internationally connected education through travel opportunities, exchange programs, school partnerships, international school leadership, and online communication. Learning to be a global citizen is crucial in a world where technology is erasing borders, and you don’t necessarily need an international education masters degree to incorporate this into your teaching.

21st century teachers need to serve as a guide or mentor for their students, not as the all-knowing sage providing them with all their information. With so much access to resources of all kinds, children are invariably going to know more than teachers on different topics, and be a step ahead of the technology in use. Teachers need to be empowered as facilitators and motivators for learning, so that they can empower their students in turn.

This shift is great news for teachers. Instead of struggling to give kids all the information they need to succeed in areas the teacher knows little about, they can support students as they make their own steps into different fields. It’s about preparing kids to go beyond their parents and teachers, making sure they have the skills to do it, and then helping along the way as they build confidence to achieve.

This means teachers need to be forward-thinking, curious and flexible. Teachers must be learners: learning new ways of teaching, and learning alongside their students. Simply asking questions like “what will my students need twenty or fifty years from now? How can I help give them those skills?” can change your mindset, make you a leader, and help you bring about change in your classroom, school and community.

Start today: Practical tips for a 21st century school Invite students to contribute to strategy meetings and decision making Create adaptable learning environments suited to different sorts of collaboration and group work Encourage students to take ownership of community service programs Find ways to connect students to people their age in other parts of the world Review your use of technology in the classroom: how can it be made more effective?

In a time when mental health and wellbeing is one of the biggest challenges facing young people, a 21st century education can give students the skills they need both for now and for the future. Skills like communication, critical thinking and EQ go beyond the workplace: they can help people through the most difficult times of their life. Finding your passion, doing it well, having a sense of purpose and focus, and being able to control your own work and life are all significant steps on the path to wellbeing.

RESULT The ability to think critically and creatively, to collaborate with others, and to communicate clearly sets students up for success in their careers, but also empowers them to lead happier, healthier lives.

Bringing your school into the 21st century requires taking the lead instead of trailing behind, actively seeking out new ways of doing things and staying in touch with the world outside of the education system. Change on a broad scale requires leadership in the classroom and across the school community, but every teacher can take steps immediately to help their students succeed.

For inspiration, empowerment, proven techniques and strategies in 21st century leadership check out my ONLINE COURSE: Leadership for the 21st Century.

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What’s the purpose of education in the 21st century?

What is the purpose of education? The question came into stark relief when Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker recently tried to quietly change the century-old mission of the University of Wisconsin system by proposing to remove words in the state code that command the university to “search for truth” and “improve the human condition” and replacing them with “meet the state’s workforce needs.” Walker backed off when the issue became public and sparked intense criticism from academics and others, but the issue remains a topic of national debate and of the following post. It was written by Arthur H. Camins, director of the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J. The ideas expressed in this article are his alone and do not represent Stevens Institute. His other writing can be found at www.arthurcamins.com .

By Arthur H. Camins

Debate about the purposes of education never seems to end.  Should young people become educated to get prepared to enter the workforce, or should the purpose of education be focused more on social, academic, cultural and intellectual development so that students can grow up to be engaged citizens?

Over the last 50 years, anxiety about competition with the Soviet Union, Japan, and China for global economic, military and political dominance have supported periodic calls for more effective workforce development. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker recently tried to change the mission statement of the University of Wisconsin to focus exclusively on workforce development. With each new workforce development or economic competitiveness demand on our K-12 schools, there has been push-back from those who want greater emphasis on a broader view of education.

But it doesn’t have to be either-or.  Education should prepare young people for life, work and citizenship.

Knowledge of the natural and engineered environments and how people live in the world is critical to all three purposes of education. Critical thinking, creativity, interpersonal skills and a sense of social responsibility all influence success in life, work and citizenship. For example, unhappy personal relationships often spill over into the work environment, while a stressful workplace or unemployment negatively impacts family life. Uninformed disengaged citizens lead to poor policy choices that impact life, work and citizenship. To paraphrase the verse in the old song, “You can’t have one without the others.”

This multiple-purpose perspective has practical implications for both day-to-day instruction as well as education policy.

What classrooms features support education for life, work and citizenship?

The key is to identify the learning behaviors in which students should be engaged. The National Research Council’s Framework for K-12 Science Education provides some good examples. The framework describes the practices that scientists and engineers utilize to build new knowledge and designs, but also the student engagement that leads to learning. To be clear, the framework starts from the premise that science is a means to develop explanations about how the natural world works, and engineering is a means to develop solutions to human problems. Both are intended to improve our lives– a strong motivator for all learning. With a little tweaking, the practices are surprisingly applicable to various school subjects and as vehicles to address our multiple purposes.

(1) Ask questions about phenomenon (causes of cancer, climate change) and define problems that need to be solved (designing cancer treatment drugs, low-impact energy generation). In classrooms, students can ask questions about how living things get energy to live and grow. They can design prototypes of robots to clean up an oil spill. An educational focus on asking productive questions and defining meaningful problems isn’t just an academic skill. It is an important disposition across life, work and citizenship.

(2) Develop and use models. Models represent relevant testable features of scientific explanations or design solutions. In classrooms, teachers engage students to surface, clarify, refine and advance their understanding. Done well, this means that teachers don’t just present already established ideas but engage students in examining and advancing their own ideas. It means that students are challenged to reflect on what they already think they know and when appropriate research what others know in order to develop a preliminary testable model. One key modeling idea, applicable to life, work and citizenship is that most problems worth contemplating are complex and that seeking to understand that complexity is a better approach than a rush to simplicity. Another important idea is that models, or our initial ideas, should be subject to systematic investigation. Knowing whether or not those models comport with reality is critical, lest we make poor uninformed choices with unintended consequences.

(3) Plan and carry out investigations. The goals of investigations are to test, refine or replace existing or hypothetical explanations or design solutions. For example, in high school biology classrooms, students may design investigations to determine what kinds of algae and what conditions are optimal for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. In doing so, they need to anticipate what data would support or challenge their initial ideas or design choices. Developing students’ abilities to examine data systematically, is yet another multipurpose education outcome. Taught well, students learn three basic premises: The questions asked frame what data is available for inquiry. The questions not asked may be just as important. In addition, in an active classroom with plenty of time for discussion, students learn that different people look at the same data and reach different interpretations. Not a bad life skill!

(4) Analyze and interpret data and (5) Use mathematics and computational thinking. Data does not speak for itself. Investigations to test explanations or designs yield data that must be interpreted. In classrooms organized around these eight practices, students learn that answers to important questions are not preordained. Instead, answers come from examining whether, when, under what circumstances, and how things work in the world. Students learn to use both traditional and modern interpretative tools. Especially in examining complex systems or designing complex solutions, mathematical representation and computational analysis are critical. Students learn to see mathematics not as procedures to be memorized, but as tools for making sense of the world– yet another multipurpose skill.

(6) Constructing explanations and designing solutions and (7) Engage in argument from evidence. The framework says:

“The goal for students is to construct logically coherent explanations of phenomena that incorporate their current understanding of science, or a model that represents it, and are consistent with the available evidence…. [When considering proposed solutions to engineering design problems], there is usually no single best solution but rather a range of solutions. Which one is the optimal choice depends on the criteria used for making evaluations.”

However, the framework goes one step further to say that in addition to developing logical evidence-based arguments, students should practice defending or revising their explanations or solutions in the light of competing ideas.  Think about the power of depersonalizing arguments and making them about evidence. That sure could improve addressing the inevitable conflicts that are part of the fabric of life, work and citizenship.

(8) Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information. The practices of science and engineering are forward-looking, knowledge- and solution-directed and always seeking improvement. As such, there is a premium on communicating with others. As a result, classrooms that engage in these practices are characterized by collaboration, reflectiveness and openness to alternative ideas. Once again, great skills to nourish for life, work and citizenship.

What policies promote education for life, work and citizenship?

First, across multiple traditional subject areas, teaching to develop students’ expertise to apply these practices implies substantial shifts in instructional emphasis. These shifts will require the development of new curricula and professional development. That should be a high funding priority.

Second, because substantial engagement in these practices is a significant cultural change, time and patience are in order. No quick fixes or short-term measurable results can be expected from current formative or summative assessment instruments or practices.

Third, teaching through these practices demands content that has personal and social relevance for students so that they are intellectually and emotionally engaged in their own learning. This implies that teaching for test success is an insufficient, if not undermining, motivator. As a result, current policies that give priority to consequential assessment need to be severely curtailed.

Fourth, since our social and technological context is constantly evolving, education for life, work and citizenship cannot just focus on what is already known and how we live now. Therefore, teaching and assessment that privilege rote learning should give way to preparation for future learning.

No matter what progress is made to shift the practices and content of daily classroom instruction, inequity will continue to be a substantial limiting factor. Application of the systems thinking that characterizes progress in science and engineering to education policy means that real sustainable improvement depends on addressing inequity in areas such as well-paid employment, health care, food, and housing security. You can’t have one without the others.

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A Critical Resource: The Importance of Literacy Skills

Learn about the importance of literacy skills. This article explores how improved reading and writing abilities lead to student success and prepare learners for the challenges of the 21st-century job market.

Published on May 21, 2024

Literacy as a key to the future

As work in every job sector requires research, analysis, and effective communication, literacy skills have become indispensable tools for success.

 The ability to read, write and comprehend information not only forms the foundation for academic achievement, but it also plays a significant role in shaping students’ future careers. According to Paul Deane, Principal Research Scientist at ETS, “To succeed in the twenty-first century economy, you have to have [literacy] skills that only a small percentage of the population may have needed in the 1920s.” 

Many schools emphasize reading catch-up alongside basic writing skills: grammar, structure, and mechanics. While these skills are certainly important, educators must prepare for advanced writing matters , including intensive workshopping and revising , should students want to claim greater fluency over their literacy abilities. “Schools with better prepared kids,” notes Paul Deane, “can spend more time in writing and cover more ground in writing …When you do that, you get faster skill growth and more motivated kids.” Supporting this kind of well-structured and meaningful content, in turn, has a powerful impact on a student’s future , or, as Deane puts it, “If you can’t write a good admissions essay, you’re already behind the 8-ball.”

An urgent need for literacy skills

Reading scores have remained stagnant for the past two decades - in recent years, they have declined due to the pandemic .

Information like this, which was revealed by the Nation’s Report Card by the National Assessment of Educational Progress , makes the case that to perform in today's competitive job market, students must possess proficient literacy skills . Travis Park, Associate Professor of Agricultural Education at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, wonders, “ Are we creating students who can be lifelong learners, not just the oil changers and mechanics, but the managers, the owners of the business? ” His question emphasizes the urgent need for schools to address literacy skills before the job market demands them later : “If you’re in it for that game,” Park says, “then reading is vitally important for [students’] long-term success.” 

To address the challenges of improving literacy skills, many schools are turning to tech-based solutions . The right technology can offer immediate auto-grading and diagnostic reviews. As such, educators can provide students with personalized learning experiences to improve their writing skills and guide the revision process. For example, tools like the Criterion® Online Writing Evaluation Service are designed to help students improve their core writing skills through unlimited opportunities to practice independent writing and invaluable automated feedback. Personalizing learning in this manner empowers students to engage with the material at their own pace .

Benefitting all student and teacher outcomes

We must recognize the interconnectedness of reading and writing when personalizing learning experiences.

In conjunction with this work, educators can empower students to face the challenges of the modern world with confidence and competence. Schools and districts can build better-developed students across all subjects with a renewed approach to critical writing concepts and systematic literacy approaches . Literacy skills unlock a world of opportunities: They are indispensable assets in every learner's journey towards a successful and fulfilling future. 

Want to improve literacy skills in your classroom? Check out the Criterion Online Writing Evaluation Service. 

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The Mind-Expanding Value of Arts Education

As funding for arts education declines worldwide, experts ponder what students — and the world at large — are losing in the process.

By Ginanne Brownell

This article is part of our special report on the Art for Tomorrow conference that was held in Florence, Italy.

Awuor Onguru says that if it were not for her continued exposure to arts education as a child, she never would have gotten into Yale University.

Growing up in a lower-middle-class family in Nairobi, Kenya, Ms. Onguru, now a 20-year-old junior majoring in English and French, started taking music lessons at the age of four. By 12, she was playing violin in the string quartet at her primary school, where every student was required to play an instrument. As a high school student on scholarship at the International School of Kenya, she was not only being taught Bach concertos, she also became part of Nairobi’s music scene, playing first violin in a number of local orchestras.

During her high school summer breaks, Ms. Onguru — who also has a strong interest in creative writing and poetry — went to the United States, attending the Interlochen Center for the Arts ’ creative writing camp, in Michigan, and the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio . Ms. Onguru, who recently returned to campus after helping organize Yale Glee Club’s spring tour in Kenya, hopes to become a journalist after graduation. She has already made progress toward that goal, serving as the opinion editor for the Yale Daily News, and getting her work published in Teen Vogue and the literary journal Menacing Hedge.

“Whether you’re in sports, whether you end up in STEM, whether you end up in government, seeing my peers — who had different interests in arts — not everyone wanted to be an artist,” she said in a video interview. “But they found places to express themselves, found places to be creative, found places to say things that they didn’t know how else to say them.”

Ms. Onguru’s path shows what a pivotal role arts education can play in a young person’s development. Yet, while the arts and culture space accounts for a significant amount of gross domestic product across the globe — in the United Kingdom in 2021, the arts contributed £109 billion to the economy , while in the U.S., it brought in over $1 trillion that year — arts education budgets in schools continue to get slashed. (In 2021, for instance, the spending on arts education in the U.K. came to an average of just £9.40 per pupil for the year .)

While experts have long espoused the idea that exposure to the arts plays a critical role in primary and secondary schooling, education systems globally have continually failed to hold it in high regard. As Eric Booth, a U.S.-based arts educator and a co-author of “Playing for Their Lives: The Global El Sistema Movement for Social Change Through Music,” said: “There are a whole lot of countries in the world that don’t have the arts in the school, it just isn’t a thing, and it never has been.”

That has led to the arts education trajectory heading in a “dark downward spiral,” said Jelena Trkulja, senior adviser for academic and cultural affairs at Qatar Museums , who moderated a panel entitled “When Arts Education is a Luxury: New Ecosystems” at the Art for Tomorrow conference in Florence, Italy, organized by the Democracy & Culture Foundation, with panels moderated by New York Times journalists.

Part of why that is happening, she said, is that societies still don’t have a sufficient and nuanced understanding of the benefits arts education can bring, in terms of young people’s development. “Arts education is still perceived as an add-on, rather than an essential field creating essential 21st-century skills that are defined as the four C’s of collaboration, creativity, communication and critical thinking,” Dr. Trkulja said in a video interview, “and those skills are being developed in arts education.”

Dennie Palmer Wolf, principal researcher at the U.S.-based arts research consultancy WolfBrown , agreed. “We have to learn to make a much broader argument about arts education,” she said. “It isn’t only playing the cello.”

It is largely through the arts that we as humans understand our own history, from a cave painting in Indonesia thought to be 45,000 years old to “The Tale of Genji,” a book that’s often called the world’s first novel , written by an 11th-century Japanese woman, Murasaki Shikibu; from the art of Michelangelo and Picasso to the music of Mozart and Miriam Makeba and Taylor Swift.

“The arts are one of the fundamental ways that we try to make sense of the world,” said Brian Kisida, an assistant professor at the University of Missouri’s Truman School of Public Affairs and a co-director of the National Endowment for the Arts-sponsored Arts, Humanities & Civic Engagement Lab . “People use the arts to offer a critical perspective of their exploration of the human condition, and that’s what the root of education is in some ways.”

And yet, the arts don’t lend themselves well to hard data, something educators and policymakers need to justify classes in those disciplines in their budgets. “Arts is this visceral thing, this thing inside you, the collective moment of a crescendo,” said Heddy Lahmann , an assistant professor of international education at New York University, who is conducting a global study examining arts education in public schools for the Community Arts Network. “But it’s really hard to qualify what that is.”

Dr. Lahmann’s early research into the decrease in spending by public schools in arts education points to everything from the lack of trained teachers in the arts — partly because those educators are worried about their own job security — to the challenges of teaching arts remotely in the early days of the Covid pandemic. And, of course, standardized tests like the Program for International Student Assessment, which covers reading, math and science, where countries compete on outcomes. “There’s a race to get those indicators,” Dr. Lahmann said, “and arts don’t readily fit into that.” In part, that is because standardized tests don’t cover arts education .

“It’s that unattractive truth that what gets measured gets attended to,” said Mr. Booth, the arts educator who co-authored “Playing for Their Lives.”

While studies over the years have underscored the ways that arts education can lead to better student achievement — in the way that musical skills support literacy, say, and arts activities lead to improved vocabulary, what have traditionally been lacking are large-scale randomized control studies. But a recent research project done in 42 elementary and middle schools in Houston, which was co-directed by Dr. Kisida and Daniel H. Bowen, a professor who teaches education policy at Texas A&M, is the first of its kind to do just that. Their research found that students who had increased arts education experiences saw improvements in writing achievement, emotional and cognitive empathy, school engagement and higher education aspirations, while they had a lower incidence of disciplinary infractions.

As young people are now, more than ever, inundated with images on social media and businesses are increasingly using A.I., it has become even more relevant for students these days to learn how to think more critically and creatively. “Because what is required of us in this coming century is an imaginative capacity that goes far beyond what we have deliberately cultivated in the schooling environment over the last 25 years,” said Mariko Silver, the chief executive of the Henry Luce Foundation, “and that requires truly deep arts education for everyone.”

Parents underestimate the importance of guided play in education, finds study

C hild psychologists have long known that play is essential for children's cognitive development because it boosts their social, physical, and emotional skills. But beginning in the 21st century, specialists repeatedly sounded the alarm that ' play is under siege ' for US children. Kids were playing less, and—it was feared—with a lesser quality.

But are today's parents sufficiently aware of the importance of letting their children play? Yes, found a team of researchers who tested this through a survey of the opinions of 1,172 US parents. Their results showed that today's parents understand how important play is for children's well-being. However, they also showed that work needs to be done to educate parents about the value of playful learning (or 'guided play') for learning goals in reading and math.

"Here we show that US parents understand that play can be more powerful for learning than direct instruction," says first author Charlotte Wright, a senior research associate at Temple University College of Liberal Arts, Philadelphia.

"Until recently, people generally considered play to be the opposite of work and learning. What we see in our study is that this separation no longer exists in the eyes of parents: a positive development."

Parents rate free play the most

Parents were interviewed aged between 18 and 75, with children aged between two and 12. Parents were White (68.9%), Hispanic (14.4%), Black (10.3%), Asian (3.4%), mixed race (2.6%), or American Indian or Native Alaskan (0.4%). Household income ranged from less than $25,000 to more than $100,000. Their level of education ranged from lacking a high school diploma (4.4%) to having a postgraduate degree (11.9%)

The results showed that parents tended to rate free play as best for learning, followed by guided play, games, and direct instruction, respectively. This held true both when these types of education were explicitly named or when they were only implied in given scenarios.

The higher the parent's level of education and the higher their household income, the more they tended to rate free play as the most effective method for learning. Likewise, parents of girls were more likely to rate free play as the most educational than parents of boys. In contrast, Black or Hispanic parents were more likely to rate direct instruction higher than forms of play.

An example of guided play

The current research consensus is that guided play is more effective than free play for children to learn skills such as mathematics, language, literacy, and the spatial awareness necessary for STEM skills.

Guided play, possible in the home and in the classroom, differs from free play in being initiated by the adult while letting the child drive her learning towards a specific goal. For example, learning in Montessori classrooms and children's museums is always initiated by an adult who reflects on learning goals. But children themselves drive the exploration within such guided learning environments—giving them choice and voice.

The authors gave an example scenario of guided play: "Raouf's father, Ola, says to Raouf, 'I wonder if we can build a tall tower with these blocks.' Ola follows Raouf's lead as Raouf tries to build the tower, asking questions to support him, when necessary (eg, 'Hmmm, our tower keeps falling when we put the blue block on the bottom! What is another block we could try?')."

Adults thus become the support team, but not the directors, of guided play.

Wright et al. concluded that "many US parents hold perceptions that do not align completely with evidence-based research, such as attributing more learning value to free play […] compared to guided play."

The results also showed that when parents were better informed about current theory on child cognitive development (as measured by questions from the Knowledge of Infant Development Inventory (KIDI) questionnaire), they tended to value guided play more.

The concept of different kinds of play, such as guided vs. free play, was only recently introduced in research and may not yet be evident to the public. Guided play also requires that parents engage with their children during a play experience, which might lead them to undervalue guided play in favor of free play.

Importance of educating parents

"While free play is crucial for children's well-being, recent research emphasizes that guided play is a more effective approach to support children's learning in reading, STEM, and learning-to-learn skills like attention, memory, and flexible thinking," said Wright.

Senior author Dr. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, a professor at the same institute, said, "We need to help refine parents' knowledge about the importance of play so that they can create guided play opportunities in everyday experiences like doing laundry, taking a walk in the park, or playing with a puzzle. As parents come to see these as 'learning' moments in everyday play, their children will thrive, while they will have more fun being parents."

The research is published in the journal Frontiers in Developmental Psychology .

More information: Charlotte Wright et al, U.S. Parents' Attitudes Towards Playful Learning, Frontiers in Developmental Psychology (2023). DOI: 10.3389/fdpys.2023.1267169

Provided by Frontiers