Helsinki Welcomes Seminar by International 21st Century Skills Consortium

On September 15–16, 2017, the University of Helsinki, Finland, welcomed the second seminar by the International Academic Consortium working as part of the Key Competencies and New Literacy project, a joint initiative between IOE and Sberbank’s Investment in Future foundation.  

The Project kicked off in late 2016 by a series of scoping and foresight discussions where academics and representatives of the business community aimed to synchronize their visions of this landmark initiative and to streamline the overall framework & delivery approach.

The Project’s principal research phase commenced in mid-summer 2017 by an introductory seminar on country scenarios for implementing the 21st century skills agenda, which was hosted by IOE on June 5–6. As its key deliverable, the Project envisages a massive comparative report that will render comprehensive perspectives on the following areas: the global 21st century skills context and its implications for Russia and other Project participant countries, socioeconomic impacts and inequality risks, psychoeducational facets of talent upgrades, including instructional and moral & ethical areas, best experience from both formal and informal learning settings, etc.

As part of the Consortium’s second seminar held on September 15–16 at the University of Helsinki, the expert team sought to pursue deeper and more wide-ranging discussions of the participant nations’ experiences in implementing new competency and literacy agendas across school curricular, so as to outline the most generic approaches and best practices that would serve as groundwork for the upcoming report.     

While highly complex and challenging in many respects, this project targets far-reaching objectives that are of paramount importance for modernizing education and building stronger social capital across nations. Given the project’s immense scope reflecting a vast diversity in local perceptions, experiences and development pathways, it’s not always easy to set clear-cut implementation goals at each step of the agenda, but sure, what our team is aspiring for is to deliver a top-quality product that will bring value for every party involved.        

Yulia Chechet, Executive Director, Sberbank’s Investment in Future Foundation

The Project’s Academic Consortium, which closely cooperates with the OECD Education 2030 program, the UNESCO International Bureau of Education and the World Bank, is supervised by the HSE Institute of Education and brings together more than 20 acclaimed social science & education experts from the world’s leading-edge academic hubs, including: University College London (the UK), Boston College (the UK), the University of Helsinki (Finland), Peking University (China), Seoul National University (Korea), Toronto University (Canada), Evidence Institute (Poland), and Moscow City University (Russia).

This seminar has been an undisputed success – all largely thanks to the integrity and excellence in everything Yulia Chechet and her team do. The discussions we’ve held have certainly yielded superb results, from the standpoint of both the overall content plane and better aligning the academic approach we’re to take up in collaborating on the comparative report.     

Isak Froumin, Head of the HSE Institute of Education