Auckland startup hosting events to raise awareness on work-ready skills
Auckland based startup 21C Skills Lab is hosting a series of events in October to raise awareness of the challenge and opportunity around 21C skills.
The events have been developed by 21C Skill's Lab founders Justine Munro and Faye Langdon to enable business and education to work together to ensure young people have the right 21C skills to survive and thrive in the new world of work.
"The future of work is going to look very different, and we must be ready. We are heading into a world where many New Zealanders will have outdated skills, susceptible to automation and offshoring, and are not well-matched to new and emerging jobs," says Munro.
"We are working to change this and encourage our education system to recognise the new 21C skill-set that has been widely and globally identified as being needed to thrive in the new world of work – and to teach young New Zealanders those skills as core.
The 21C skill set includes critical skills like tenacity, creativity, curiosity and a growth mindset, as essential learning for students to thrive in the new world of work.
"We want to show parents, educators, school leaders, employers, education sector groups and government agencies, the increasing importance of 21C skills, and as importantly demonstrate how we can all best support young people to build these skills and be better prepared in this rapidly changing work world," says Munro.
Thought leaders and world-leading assessment experts, ACT chief scientist Dr Richard Robert and ACT strategist Jonathan Martin will be speaking at some of the events including the public event Future Fit?
United States-based, both men were instrumental in the development of the next generation Tessera assessment system which provides a reliable means of assessing social and emotional skill levels, and looks at the impact of intervention at an individual and cohort level.
"Both Richard and Jonathan are at the forefront globally of 21C skills assessment and will be sharing the latest research with a focus on social and emotional skills and how they impact life and career success.
21C Skills Lab has partnered with ACT to be the first country outside of the United States to use the Tessera assessment.
The programme has been customised for New Zealand and is currently being piloted in 12 Auckland secondary and intermediate schools and tertiary organisations that are actively committed to supporting students to understand, develop and showcase the full range of 21C skills.
"What's great about Tessera is that we can actually measure and assess social and emotional competencies which we have incontrovertible evidence to show are critical enablers for life and work success. To be the first country, outside of the States, to pilot the programme and champion innovation is exciting for the future of our education system," Munro says.
"Our aim is to ensure that every intermediate and secondary school in NZ is using Tessera as a tool for focused and evidence-based skills development, recognising the significance of non-academic factors in student success," says Munro.
The public discussion and panel Future Fit? will be held at AUT University on Wednesday, October 18, from 5.30pm to 7.30pm.
Joining Dr Richard Robert and Jonathan Martin will be Vic Crone, Callaghan Innovation CEO, Marc England, Genesis Energy CEO, and Claire Amos, co-founder of the new STEAM-focused City Senior School.
