Future Skills in Education: Psychologists’ Views on the Skills of the Future from the Perspective of Individual Well-Being

Abstract:

One of the contemporary challenges of education is to prepare children to deal with problems that they will face in adulthood – but many of these problems are not yet known. To address this situation, frameworks for education have been developed relating to the skills needed. Most of these frameworks focus on the presumed needs of the future labour market. This paper describes a survey in which future skills were examined in terms of the individual’s ability to lead a successful, balanced and fulfilling life. During the survey, we reviewed the relevant frameworks (based on the relevant literature) and conducted interviews in five countries with psychologists familiar with children’s cognitive and affective development about the challenges that can be expected. In the light of these interviews, it was possible to outline the skills that would need to be developed between the ages of 6 and 10, and – based on these skills – to formulate the expectations that development activities should meet. The main goal was to outline the frames of skill development in the light of an unpredictably changing social, cultural and technological environment. This work undergirded our further task: to elaborate a methodology and a toolkit to match the development objectives.