Skills for a changing world: The global movement to prepare students for the 21st century

National education systems are moving toward an explicit focus on developing the breadth of skills within their students. This means moving beyond teaching traditional subject areas, such as numeracy and literacy, to including a broad range of skills, such as problem solving, critical thinking, and collaboration. This shift toward broadening the provision of education is part of a larger global movement to prepare students for the demands of the 21st century.

In order to visualize this movement, researchers at the Center for Universal Education (CUE) at Brookings analyzed countries’ stated education goals and associated curriculum and policy frameworks. The video below highlights this research.

To explore this movement further, researchers at CUE examined the attitudes and perceptions of diverse stakeholder groups toward breadth of skills in Mexico, South Africa, Kenya, and the Philippines. The report, Skills for a changing world: National perspectives and the global movement, provides detailed findings based on country-level interviews and focus group discussions.

To learn more about the Skill for a Changing World project, please visit our project webpage, interactive online map, and sign up for our newsletter.

A special thank you to Tyler Ditmore, Josh Miller, Ian McAllister, and George Burroughs for their creative vision and development of the animated video.