Global, 21st Century, Competencies: Can the effort be sustained?
Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia
[permission to reproduce if authorship is acknowledged]
The idea that it
is desirable to develop skills, abilities, capacities, and to cultivate certain
dispositions and personality traits in individuals for the purpose of producing
economic value is a traditional staple of educational thought. Now described as
21st century skills or global competencies, the most recent
incarnation of human capital refers to the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and
values that students will need to navigate and succeed in a uncertain economic,
technological, political and environmental future (https://www.cmec.ca/682/Global_Competencies.html).
According to the
contemporary line of thought, the uncertain future requires individuals who
have developed ‘deeper learning’ that enables them to use what they know and
can do because they are lifelong learners. The Council of Ministers of
Education Canada (CMEC) expressed the view that clear definitions of global
competencies are needed to have discussion about “fostering and measuring these
competencies across provincial and territorial education systems.” CMEC endorsed
six pan-Canadian global competencies: critical
thinking and problem solving; innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship; learning
to learn/self-awareness and self-direction; collaboration; communication; and global
citizenship and sustainability.
Despite the pan-Canadian
intentions of the CMEC each jurisdiction seems to define, organize and
instantiate core/global competencies in slightly different ways. British Columbia has identified
three core competencies: communication, thinking, and personal and social. Each
core competency contains sub-competencies. For example, communication contains
a sub-competency called communicating and another called collaborating”;
personal and social contains three sub-competencies: personal awareness and
responsibility; positive personal and cultural identity; and social
awareness and responsibility.
In addition to
being part of CMEC, Education Ministers in Newfoundland & Labrador, Nova
Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island have created their own council,
the Council of Atlantic Ministers of Education and Training (CAMET). In 2015,
CAMET adopted the Atlantic
Canada Framework for Essential Graduation Competencies. CAMET’s competency
framework includes citizenship, communication, personal-career
development, creativity and innovation, critical thinking,
and technological fluency.
Ontario
has also developed 21st century competencies, mapped them to CMEC’s,
and tried to express what students will know and be able to do if they are
achieved:
Competencies in Canada’s
provinces and territories are more similar than they are different, but CMEC’s
vision of pan-Canadian global competencies has not been fully realized. Despite
the benefits to be derived from inter-provincial cooperation, there is no requirement
to do so. Canada’s provinces and territories work hard to preserve their
exclusive jurisdiction for education; the differences among them in terms of
competencies is one of many such differences.
Having identified
the competencies they value, the provinces and territories face a more daunting
set of tasks. They must, as British Columbia, Ontario and
CAMET have, define and develop tangible examples of the competencies. Having
defined and instantiated the competencies, provinces and territories must
integrate them in provincial and territorial curricula. Although often
described as cross-curricular, if the global or 21st century competencies
are not explicitly integrated throughout the curricula they will simply be symbolic
expressions rather than having much tangible impact on what students know and
can do.
The next challenge
will be to prepare teachers for using and carefully assessing the competencies
at the classroom level. And, finally, the provinces and territories will need
to develop the tools for measuring student competency attainment at the
jurisdictional level. Competencies that are not assessed at the classroom and
provincial level won’t have the intended impact on students.
If global
competencies or 21st century skills are to be taken seriously, there
is quite a bit of work ahead. Some provinces are a bit ahead of the others but
all have a long way to go. If global competencies or 21st century
skills are more than a fad, the work will need to continue through partisan changes in government and be sustained in the face of whatever ‘new’ initiative
seems attractive or appealing. Education has a poor track record of maintaining
a system-wide focus.