Skills vs. Education

I recently saw a graph categorizing skills for 2030 into “Out-of-focus”, “Steady”, “Emerging” and “Core”. But I couldn't help noticing that the “Out-of-focus” category included a number of skills that are basic and absolutely required to handle the “Core" skills. Can you do "Creative Thinking" or "Analytical Thinking", all in the "Core" category, without "Reading, Writing, Mathematics" in the "Out-of-focus" group? Or "Talent Management" without "Global citizenship"? Why is "Multi-lingualism" something “Out-of-focus"?

To me, the chart was mixing fundamental thinking and values, which come from basic education, with skills that can be acquired by targeted learning. So at the end, it told me nothing.

My point is that fundamentals, like reading (in it's most expansive meaning), writing, math or empathic and multi-cultural (and linguistic) thinking, combined with strong values such as honesty, charity, humility and, to some degree, discipline and team-work are the essentials that should be taught in any case. 

With those, most people will develop a personality with a strong foundation. If they have it, they may go into paths related to creativity or science (analytical) or technology. Or whatever comes up.

Then, they can learn the skills they want or need. And change them, learn new ones, progress, evolve. A good foundation makes you flexible.

So, I’m asking people to stop talking about skills that can be acquired in a relatively short time and focus on fundamentals.

There are two points here:

1. Whatever can be automated or calculated, will be. Is "driving" a skill? Look at Waymo. Is "chip design" a skill? Look at Nvidia. Bridges, buildings, roads, ship cargo, doctor appointments... you name it. And it doesn't need to be AI.

2. We live a life of constant change. It's not just now, it has always been. Anybody prepared to be flexible will hold the upper hand. Any country or society able to offer the essentials for such a flexibility will prevail. Others will just train their people to be tools, replaceable and abandoned when not longer required.

So, let's put our thing together and push, all the time, everywhere, for an education focused on essentials. Which, by the way, are common among races, religions and cultures (just some guys use them wrongly).