21st century skills

21st century skills comprise skills, abilities, and learning dispositions identified as requirements for success in 21st century society and workplaces by educators, business leaders, academics, and governmental agencies. This is part of an international movement focusing on the skills required for students to prepare for workplace success in a rapidly changing, digital society. Many of these skills are associated with deeper learning, which is based on mastering skills such as analytic reasoning, complex problem solving, and teamwork, which differ from traditional academic skills as these are not content knowledge-based.

During the latter decades of the 20th century and into the 21st century, society evolved through technology advancements at an accelerated pace, impacting economy and the workplace, which impacted the educational system preparing students for the workforce. Beginning in the 1980s, government, educators, and major employers issued a series of reports identifying key skills and implementation strategies to steer students and workers towards meeting these changing societal and workplace demands.

Western economies transformed from industrial-based to service-based, with trades and vocations having smaller roles. However, specific hard skills and mastery of particular skill sets, with a focus on digital literacy, are in increasingly high demand. People skills that involve interaction, collaboration, and managing others are increasingly important. Skills that enable flexibility and adaptability in different roles and fields, those that involve processing information and managing people more than manipulating equipment—in an office or a factory—are in greater demand. These are also referred to as "applied skills" or "soft skills", including personal, interpersonal, or learning-based skills, such as life skills (problem-solving behaviors), people skills, and social skills. The skills have been grouped into three main areas:

Many of these skills are also identified as key qualities of progressive education, a pedagogical movement that began in the late nineteenth century and continues in various forms to the present.

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