Finland, Switzerland And New Zealand Are Leading The Way At Teaching Skills For The Future

Finland is the leader of the world at the provision of future skills education, as per the Worldwide Educating for the Future Index (WEFFI), which is now in its second year, closely followed by Switzerland.

Both the countries particularly have excelled in the policy environment category, and specifically in terms of formulation of future skills strategy, the periodic review of strategy and the assessment frameworks for supporting future skills training.

The report of WEFFI, by the Economist Intelligence Unit, acknowledges at policy initiatives, teaching methodologies and the socio-economic environment of 50 countries. It is found that the five worst-ranked countries include Egypt, Nigeria, Algeria, Iran, and Pakistan.

Nowadays people are living in an era which is increasingly being defined by a change in terms of both its speed and its spread. A number of start-up works, harnessing the power of technology, have successfully up-ended the status quo of sectors after sectors. Now there is Amazon, which disrupted the sale of books and has become the biggest bookseller of the world, before disrupting the book itself with the creation of mass-market e-readers and electronic book consumption. Currently, Uber has managed to redefine the taxi sphere, and in the financial sphere fintech companies have changed the way people manage their money.

But the next wave of change will have more superior effects. Because of which, it is so important and significant for national governments to set in track the right policies. As things stand, as per the WEFFI report’s authors, most countries’ educational systems are not configured to equip the next generation with the required skills they are most likely to apply.

Another part of the challenge which is facing by educationalists is that technological change will call for skills which fall outside of age-old approaches to curriculum design and teaching. Emotional intelligence, creative thinking, and collaboration are just three main aptitudes which will be required but which cannot easily be taught in a traditional classroom environment.

This fast and effective pace of technological transformation is often referred to as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. It is based on a suite of technological developments which includes automation, artificial intelligence, the internet of things, the fusion of genetic science with biotech, and always-on access to data.

By: Preeti Narula

Content: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/03/finland-switzerland-new-zealand-lead-at-teaching-skills/