21st Century Data Literacy Skills in Schools

According to the World Economic Forum report New Vision for Education: Fostering Social and Emotional Learning Through Technology, the gap between the skills people learn and the skills people need is becoming more obvious, as traditional learning falls short of equipping students with the knowledge they need to thrive.

Just like the economy and job marketplace, education is constantly changing. In order to be successful in the three areas (student life, adulthood, and working), you need to acquire a set of universal skills. Refusing to adapt would do a terrible disservice to students, leaving them poorly prepared for their futures. According to the framework by the American National Education Association, key 21st-century skills fall under one of these three categories (learning skills, Literacy skills and Life skills).

Today’s job candidates must be able to collaborate, communicate and solve problems such skills developed mainly through social and emotional learning (SEL). Combined with traditional skills, this social and emotional proficiency will equip students to succeed in the evolving digital economy.

Learning Skills:

Critical thinking is the ability to analyze different kinds of facts in order to form an opinion or to come to a conclusion.

Creativity is a skill required in almost every profession. Creativity is the ability to come up with new ideas or concepts in a given field.

Collaboration is the ability to work with other professionals in the field as part of a team is one of the most essential skills out there.

Communication is the skill that links together all the other learning skills. Skills like being able to think critically, being creative, and collaborating with others can only be put to use if you know how to communicate ideas clearly and effectively.

Literacy skills examples are information literacy (ability to work with statistics and data and sift through the plethora of information online to find what you are looking for), media literacy (nowadays, media consumption is something that is constant, and being able to differentiate between reliable and unreliable (fake news) sources is a must), technology literacy (being technological literate is one of the few skills that are applicable in nearly every industry as knowing how to use email, social media, and PowerPoint presentations are essential in today’s world).

Common Life Skills are adaptability or flexibility (the economy can change hourly, and sometimes what worked yesterday may not work today hence the inability to adapt has led to many people becoming unemployed and has made businesses fail), leadership (virtually everyone needs leadership skills, be it entry-level positions or those not in leadership positions, because they can better understand company decisions and prepare to take on leadership roles in the future by acquiring leadership skills), initiative and determination(nowadays, employers seek out people who constantly show initiative such as willingness to complete tasks out of their job description or work overtime in order to grow professionally. More and more companies reward their employees less on how long they have been in a company and more on what they can contribute to a company. Hard work and the ability to come up with new ideas for improvement will lead to success).

In continuation of life skills is efficiency (Being efficient is essentially the same as being productive, which means this is a skill everyone can acquire) and lastly social skills (One of the most influential factors in one’s career success is networking and as mostly known sometimes the “who you know” is as significant as “what you do and how well you do it.” The ability to socialize and form work relationships with professionals that are part of the same industry, as you as well as other industries, can do wonders for your career, and this is only possible if you develop great social skills).

Promoting data literacy in organization starts with culture. Organizations need to establish data-first cultures that encourage the use of data, with strong support for the use of facts in decision making and a culture that celebrates curiosity and critical thinking. Creating this type of culture requires a combination of the right technology and the right people. Recruitment will be one of the first areas where we see this shift taking place, as companies hire datadriven employees who champion the use of data throughout their organization.

This journey will be uncomfortable at times, but one we need to embrace. Humans more than machines will oppose this change, but one thing is clear, it needs to start from the top. Leadership teams need to believe in it, promote it and live by it. Data literacy is a new language, and we all need to be fluent in it. With data everywhere, it will become the means of communication between IT and business, between the citizen data scientists and the domain experts.