This submission will explore and share the biggest challenge that students face today based on

the reading “The Future of Education and Skills 2030”.

Students face many challenges today, and their challenges differ based on their socio-economic
status, race, their country of origin, their gender, and many other factors.
According to “The Future of Education and Skills 2030”, the biggest challenge that students face
today is the lack of guidance and mentorship. Lacking guidance and mentorship are what has
brought into the picture the OECD learning compass 2030 that is meant to guide and mentor
students in the right direction so that they acquire the necessary competencies for the 21st
century.
The 21st Century as an internet era is accompanied by a lot of information, both factual and
fiction. For young people, or students, it is not easy to distinguish between relevant and
irrelevant information, hence, the compass defines the relevant skills that learners need to focus
on, and how to separate facts from fiction. There are lots of celebrities in communities and online
with great influence over students, but are they the best individuals to teach students the best
values? In most cases, no, and that is where the OECD compass comes in and helps educators
teach students attitudes and values that are relevant and will later contribute to the well-being of
their communities and the world at large.
Students need the right guidance and mentorship to achieve the right competencies by helping
them take responsibility for their learning, transforming their competencies, creating new value,
and reconciling their tensions and dilemmas.
Students’ mental health is of utmost importance, and there is a great need to ensure that their
tensions and dilemma are reconciled through collaborative tasks and considering the results of
actions from both short- and long-term perspectives.
Students need to feel trusted in their capabilities and knowledge. Trusting students gives them
the confidence to take responsibility and not be afraid to make errors. Trusting students in their
abilities means they must reflect on their actions and act appropriately. Students must be the
agent in their learning to accommodate more skills and knowledge. Students can continuously
improve their thinking and capabilities by applying the AAR (anticipation-action-reflection) cycle
for 2030 to broaden their understanding and perspective (OECD, 2019).
Conclusion
Challenges that students face are many, but what may help them thrive regardless of the
situation they find themselves in is self-discipline. Students must have the self-discipline to
achieve academic and community excellence. Without self-discipline, they cannot achieve the
necessary competencies needed to be future-ready and make an impact in their communities
and their world at large. Students spend more hours at school with their peers and teachers
hence, the teachers emerge as the best role models for students. Teachers must teach students
to coexist, have emotional intelligence, tolerate others’ opinions, collaborate, develop critical
thinking skills, develop a moral compass and all in all acquire learning, literacy, and life skills. This
submission explored and shared the biggest challenge that students face today based on the
reading “The Future of Education and Skills 2030”.
References
OECD (2019), The Future of Education and Skills: Education 2030. Position paper,
http://www.oecd.org/education/2030/E2030%20Position%20Paper%20(05.04.2018).pdf.
Future Skills are competences that allow individuals to solve complex problems in highly
emergent contexts of action in a self-organized way and enable them to act (successfully) (Next
skills, 2022). It refers to the person’s character to perform to the outside world in an organized
and efficient manner.
A Three-Dimensional Model for Future Skills is a very interesting phenomenon because it
classifies Future Skills into three dimensions which are all interrelated.
The future skills and the future of higher education report discusses about some of the work
done by scholars to predict skills that may be of use in the future. The report also mentions some
practices of universities in the western world. The predictions done to identify the skills were
conducted empirically with the subjects being mostly of European descent with a few others of
Asian Origin. There has been a lot of discussion on future skills and the world Economic forum in
the future of jobs report (WEF 2018) mentions that by the year 2022, the skills needed to do
most jobs will have changed significantly. I disagree with this sentiment owing to the extent on
which the statement has been defined. Between 2018 and 2022, of course there were changes in
the job skills demands but not significantly. There have been notable changes in the skills
demanded for jobs in the past few years.