Social and emotional skills play an essential role during all stages of life. Along with cognitive and learning abilities, it is equally important that our youth develop social and emotional skills in order to balance and ground their personalities and strengthen their characters. This blog post on a new OECD publication, "Skills for Social Progress", was written by Lynda Hawe of the OECD Directorate for Education and Skills, as part of our focus on youth well-being during the Wikiprogress online consultation on Youth Well-being.
As we know from personal experiences, when we feel a deep sense
of well-being we are far better able to absorb new information, take risks and be
more responsible for our lives. Now don’t
we want that for all youth?
But growing-up can often be quite a challenging period. Ensuring that youth have a wide variety of
skills to help them cope with some of life’s challenges may not always occur
naturally. Sometimes they will need help
in building social and emotional skills - which are the kind of skills involved
in achieving goals, working with others and managing emotions.
Social and emotional skills play an essential role during
all stages of life. Fundamentally, along
with cognitive and learning abilities, it is equally important that our youth
develop social and emotional skills in order to balance and ground their
personalities and strengthen their characters. Some examples are: Perseverance,
which is the ability to keep going when things get tough and rough (like when
the sports teacher demands that you to run another 10 laps of the pitch and you
already feel exhausted). Caring, which is the capacity to be
kind to others and to be able to show and feel empathy (when you support an
upset friend by listening and comforting them, irrespective of other priorities
or personal time constraints). Self-esteem,
which means being able to feel good and
being proud of your personal achievements, and comfortable with your physical
appearances (regardless of any unpleasant comments from peers).
Luckily, some of these skills are flexible and adjustable
when growing-up. This allows opportunities for policy makers, teacher and
parents to provide the right kind of learning environments, in order to support
and nurture them. The book Skills
for Social Progress: The power of Social and Emotional Skills addresses the
importance of these types of skills to enhance and balance lives. It confirms international research studies
that validate the need for a steady set of cognitive, social and emotional
skill in order to succeed well in life.
In the past, we often thought that these types of skills couldn’t be
successfully quantified. In contrast, this
report demonstrates that they can be measured meaningfully, within cultural and
linguistic boundaries. Additionally, the
OECD will develop more measures and design an international comparative
framework, in order to better grasp youth’s current and future needs for social
and emotional skills. Consequently, this
report supplements the reflection on how future policies could best encourage
and nurture the development of social and emotional skills, of course, working closely with parents and teachers.
Not surprisingly, we need a wide range of diverse skills to
contribute to the economy, support better social outcomes and build more
unified and tolerant societies.
Cognitive abilities such as literacy and problem-solving remain crucial.
Nonetheless, youth with strong social and emotional foundation skills thrive better
in a highly dynamic labour market and rapidly changing world. Investing in these skills will be central to addressing
numerous socio-economic challenges, and for ensuring prosperous, healthy,
engaged, responsible and happy youth.
More information
Centre for Educational Research
and Innovation CERI
OECD Skills Strategy
Programme for the International
Assessment of Adult Competencies PIAAC
website
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