5 skills that our current education systems are failing to develop


5 skills that our current education systems are failing to develop

Most people will agree to say that our current education systems are far from being perfect. From the use of wrong techniques of transmission of the information, up to the mostly irrelevant and reductive academic grading systems, the list goes on. These weaknesses are being blamed for years by experts, who constantly recommend more or less radical changes in our modern educational techniques.

At the same time, in an increasingly competitive job market, companies are searching for graduates who not only have learned from their textbooks, but also from the world around them. That’s why skill development is necessary from a young age, and should evolve accordingly to the student’s aspirations to create ideal employees. Here are 5 skills that traditional education systems fail to develop:


  1.   Creativity and Initiative

Whether it is in scientific or more literary fields, a clear methodological approach is taught at school. What’s not taken into account is that these techniques often go against the creativity of students and barely make sense to the most inventive minds, as well as nurturing fears related to decision making processes and initiative taking. In short, we are in a system that often slows down personal initiative by fostering general consensus, and feeding an impression of artistic confinement for most students. However, creativity and initiative are very wanted qualities on the labour market, since many positions must nowadays take into account criteria of innovation and differentiation, which only a creative, audacious and self-confident graduate will be able to meet successfully.


  1.   Teamwork:

Compiling the talents of each. School, or more precisely, higher education, nevertheless tries to transmit social skills through group work to encourage collaboration, gestation of ideas, and division of tasks. In reality, the collaborative spirit often lacks. Let’s face it : most of the time, it’s individualism that governs working relationships. Since childhood, students are encouraged to do better than their classmates, which often results in a climate of competition that undermines group spirit. Still, this quality has always been essential at a professional level to master in order to achieve better performances.


  1. Technology/ IT skills :

Often by for lack of means, and because they require weather time or investment that schools don’t always possess, IT skills are rather poorly taught. Several online computer certifications are now available for any student who wishes to deepen its knowledge of the internet, networks, or coding. These skills remain nevertheless often very badly mastered by young graduates, who leave the benches of college with a rather mediocre level of computing and a limited knowledge of the new technologies.


  1.   Goal setting :

Fulfilment of ambitions and projects, whether they are personal or professional, necessarily involves a phase of goal setting. This phase is often forgotten by many students who think they master all aspects of things, lack motivation and forget to impose to themselves a discipline based on a good time management strategy. Yet, the most important thing about motivation is goal setting. How would we be able to detect evolution, effort related to an objective, if we have not established it beforehand? Conversely, a goal without a plan is just a wish. It’s all about motivation.


  1.  Crisis management :

The last essential skill, and nevertheless very little taught nowadays (except in very specialized courses in Business Intelligence), is the one of the crisis management. Indeed, a crisis can arise at any time for any company, which has to react accordingly very quickly, especially in the context of the very fast circulation of information on social media. It is thus important to train managers aware of risks and capable of avoiding them. This skill is obviously closely linked to stress management, which consequences are also poorly considered in our classic education systems.

By Inès Zaroui

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