Global Achievement Gap (Part I): Global Labor Market

After a certain age, time flies! It seems like yesterday that we celebrated the year 2000—the change of the millennium. I am so grateful to have seen that year arrive. 2000 was pre-9/11 and the economic crisis of 2008. How things have changed.

One of the changes we are currently faced with is the globalization of the world’s economies and labor markets. I used to wonder who our government was in debt to. Was it the tax payers? Was it the banking system? Now I know, as many of us do, that a great deal of our national debt is owed to China. This is still amazing to me.

Now, our youth are faced with a Global Labor Market (GLM) in which they have to compete. For our first foray into this topic, let’s review what one researcher sees as the challenges for our educational system, and for our youth in moving forward in this brave new world. The following is the list of Survival Skills he sees as a necessity if we are to compete in the GLM, none of which—according to him—our schools are stressing. The skills listed below are excerpted from The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need—And What We Can Do About It, written by Tony Wagner.

Survival Skills Needed for the Global Labor Market (listed in order of importance):
Please review these and share with us any thoughts you may have.

• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
• Collaboration across Networks and Leading by Influence
• Agility and Adaptability
• Initiative and Entrepreneurialism
• Effective Oral and Written Communication
• Accessing and Analyzing Information
• Curiosity and Imagination

In our next two issues, we will discuss some of these Survival Skills, and how EUREKA is—and will become even more useful in—assisting to address these GLM demands. These are exciting times. Even the challenges are exciting!