Acquisition of Life Skills - A Challenge For School Curriculum"

Acquisition of Life Skills –
a Challenge for School

Curriculum
Dr.hab.paed., prof. Tatjana Koķe
Minister of Education and Science

Republic of Latvia
Minister of Education and Science Republic of Latvia

Dr. hab.paed., Prof. Tatjana Koķe Ministry of Education and Science
Changes
Development of
Learning Society
IT Globalisation
development
Changes in
organization
culture
Paradoxes of
Contemporary Society (1)
• Globalization of economics strengthens in education policy
tendency for individualisation
• Hierarchical structure of educational system, practise of
classroom instruction serves as a barrier for creativity,
responsibility, decision-making ability. The shift should be
done from hierarchy to competence
• The more people use different complicated technologies, the
more there is a need for paying attention to the issues of
illiteracy and lack of basic skills. Thus, their participation in
community life and employability is threatened.
• Growing share of investments in education do not support
tendency of social inclusion.
Paradoxes of
• Ongoing processes in the contemporary society create
disparities among schools and question common standards for
quality of education.
• Social polarization of individuals is growing regardless age or
place of residence.
• Individual’s needs within contemporary society more and
more alienates learning from traditional education. Namely,
contemporary learning should provide more flexible and
transferable skills that help an individual in a short period of
time and resources to adapt and demonstrate self-efficacy
within constant changes .

Paradoxes of
• Prevaling consumers’ culture has to be shifted towards the

culture of co-responsibility. Emphases on responsibility and
evidence-based decision making for individuals quality of life
and better society (Learning society instead of consumer
society)
• Since year 2000 accumulated information doubles in 73 days.

Information and knowledge booming has increased a demand
for quick learning as lifelong and lifewide process
Creative Industries Strategic Management MBA Creative Industries Management

Dr., Prof. Tatjana Volkova BA School of Business and Finance
Descriptors of Future Society
Indicator Industrial Era Learning Era
Wealth Physical/financial Human capital
Home Life organized for work Work organized for life
Authority Hierarchy Networked autonomy
Identity Imposed identity Self-generated identity
Freedom Liberation from Capacity to do things

constraints
Miller R.,OECD, 2003

Tasks for education
• Not to learn by heart the information, but to develop skills for

finding and implementing it, thus providing balance between
theoretical knowledge and life skills to live in the real world and
to solve concrete life’s tasks
• To provide opportunities for students to deal with controversial
issues and different loyalties
• Along with routine cognitive skills (reading, writing, numeracy)
to develop non-routine analytic and social/ interactive skills
• Expand learning from clasroom to comunity and society wide
• Focus from individual learning to learning organization through
implementation of team-work, shared responsibilities, etc
The heart of the matter
Life skills Learning Society
LEARNING TO BECOME

Self-
management Handling and
Team work Interpreting
information
Adaptability, Applying new

flexibility, knowledge
entrepreneurship Skills for into practice
living in LS
Thinking skills Learning to

and creativity learn
Questioning,
Management
Reasoning,
& Communication
Critical judgement
*Longworth
Research data
n %
Law 70 76
Masters
Pedagogy 22 24
female 63 68
Gender
male 29 32

Teamwork
Adaptability, flexibility,
versatility
Management and
communication skills
Thinking skills and creativity
Questioning, reasoning,
critical judgement
Learning to learn
Applying new knowledge in

practice
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
(%)
basic secondary university

Applying new knowledge in
practice
Learning to learn
Questioning, reasoning,
critical judgement
Thinking skills and creativity
Management and
communication skills
Adaptability, flexibility,
versatility
Teamwork
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
(%)
Humanities Social Sciences Natural Sciences

80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
flexibility, versatility
Applying new
Learning to learn
knowledge in
Management and
Teamwork
reasoning, critical
Thinking skills and
communication
(%)
Questioning,
practice
Adaptability,
judgement
creativity
skills
Independent work Group work Research Interactive methodes Presentations Lectures Literature, ICK

Curriculum reform in Latvia
• Competence-based curriculum according to standards in

basic (early 1990-ies) and secondary education (2008)
• Interrelation and integration of content eliminating duplication
and fragmentation
• Diversification of teaching methods

Education Domains
• “Language”,
• “Man and society”,
• “Arts”,
• “Technology and sciences”.

Holistic approach to curriculum

School curriculum shift from knowledge as a
learning outcome to Skills-orientated outcome
Disco pro Vita

to learn for life
The aim of the method: to foster the

development of pupils’ life skills

Fairy tale
Once upon a time there lived a young man who was in love with a
beautiful and very capricious girl. One day she said to him:
“You don’t love me strongly enough. If I turn into a rose, you
won’t even be able to recognize me among other roses.” The
young man, though surprised, hurried to calm her down: “You
are so special that I will find you among all the roses in the
world.”
“Well, then early in the morning I will go to the garden and turn
into a rose similar to those ones which grow there, and stand
among them. If you come there in a while and figure out that
very rose, it will be the best proof of your love,” said the girl.
The puzzled young man had to agree. The next morning he
managed to recognize the rose into which his sweetheart had
turned into.
Give the explanation how he did it?
The answer
Only that very rose didn’t have dew on its petals.

The rest of roses had dew on them as all the night they had
stood outside and when the air cooled down, the water
molecules, containing in the air got condensed and
gathered on the surface of the roses forming water drops -
morning dew.

Learning outcomes
• Pupils comprehend how and where in life they can use the
knowledge and skills acquired in school.
• Pupils’ inventiveness, attention and logical thinking in

problem solving is demonstrated.
• Pupils create and implement new ideas.
• Pupils develop holistic perception of life, etc.
Creative Industries Strategic Management MBA Creative Industries Management

Dr., Prof. Tatjana Volkova BA School of Business and Finance
Conclusions
• To use more interactive, research methods in order to promote

pupil’s creativity and search of the innovative solutions
• Practical application of theoretical knowledge: to bring the
study process and School curriculum nearer to life
• To develop collaboration between girls and boys to work
together in the common projects to one gender’s abilities can
supplement to other one.
• To acquaint with lifelong learning’s ideas as early is possible,
already in the elementary educational stage, focusing on skills
for living in Learning society.

Vision
“We belong to the first generation that knows for

certain that it doesn’t know what the future will be
like”
/Sir Christopher Ball/

Thank you for your attention!


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Acquisition of Life Skills –

a Challenge for School

Dr.hab.paed., prof. Tatjana Koķe

Minister of Education and Science

Minister of Education and Science Republic of Latvia

Minister of Education and Science Republic of Latvia

• Prevaling consumers’ culture has to be shifted towards the

• Since year 2000 accumulated information doubles in 73 days.

Creative Industries Strategic Management MBA Creative Industries Management

Indicator Industrial Era Learning Era

Wealth Physical/financial Human capital

Home Life organized for work Work organized for life

Authority Hierarchy Networked autonomy

Identity Imposed identity Self-generated identity

Freedom Liberation from Capacity to do things

Miller R.,OECD, 2003

Minister of Education and Science Republic of Latvia

• Not to learn by heart the information, but to develop skills for

Life skills Learning Society

Minister of Education and Science Republic of Latvia

Adaptability, Applying new

Thinking skills Learning to

Minister of Education and Science Republic of Latvia

Thinking skills and creativity

Applying new knowledge in

Minister of Education and Science Republic of Latvia

Thinking skills and creativity

Minister of Education and Science Republic of Latvia

Thinking skills and

Minister of Education and Science Republic of Latvia

• Competence-based curriculum according to standards in

Minister of Education and Science Republic of Latvia

Minister of Education and Science Republic of Latvia

Minister of Education and Science Republic of Latvia

Disco pro Vita

The aim of the method: to foster the

Minister of Education and Science Republic of Latvia

Only that very rose didn’t have dew on its petals.

Minister of Education and Science Republic of Latvia

• Pupils’ inventiveness, attention and logical thinking in

• Pupils create and implement new ideas.

• Pupils develop holistic perception of life, etc.

Creative Industries Strategic Management MBA Creative Industries Management

• To use more interactive, research methods in order to promote

Minister of Education and Science Republic of Latvia

“We belong to the first generation that knows for

Minister of Education and Science Republic of Latvia

Minister of Education and Science Republic of Latvia

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