Skills are more important than formal qualifications, UAE educators told

DUBAI // Skills, not diplomas, have become the dominant indicator of future success in the 21st century, a group of educators heard at a forum hosted by the Varkey Gems Foundation in Dubai.

“Skills are highly predictive of your future success,” said Andreas Schleicher, one of the architects of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Pisa examination and its special adviser on education policy.

“You can see the correlation, you don’t get great skills and your life chances are dramatically diminished. Formal qualifications are not equal to skills. There are a lot of people with university degrees who can’t find a job.”

Mr Schleicher, who is a member of the Varkey Gems Foundation advisory board, shared highlights of his OECD research and other findings with a group of Gems Education leaders at Gems Wellington International School on Monday as part of a visit with the foundation.

“Someone like Andreas, who works in the OECD analysing education systems around the world, we have a lot to gain from that knowledge,” said Vikas Pota, chief executive of Varkey Gems Foundation. “He takes his role very seriously in our advisory board and he’s here for us to consult with and to devise better interventions.”

The data presented by Mr Schleicher showed there is a high demand for problem solvers, effective communicators and creative thinkers. Students must be able to go beyond learning content.

“The knowledge economy does not pay for what you know, but for what you can do with what you know,” Mr Schleicher said.

Results of Pisa 2012 were also briefly discussed.

While students in the UAE made gains in the examination, which tested 15-year-olds in reading, science and mathematics, the country still ranked below average. Considering the amount of funding that is invested in the country’s education, the results should be higher, Mr Schleicher said.

“There’s really a lot of work to do in the Emirates because the gap between investment and outcome is really significant,” he said. “If you look at the results, there is still a lot of room for improvement. There are some schools that demonstrate that excellence is possible, but there are also a lot of schools where performance still lags considerably behind what we expect given the level of investment that the Emirates makes.”

Mr Schleicher, who is German, said teachers and parents needed to raise the bar when it came to expectations.

“It has to do with the level of ambition in their system, raising expectations for all students from all socio-economic backgrounds, making sure that we have high aspirations for every child – that’s not the case now. Making sure that every student has access to great teachers, which has to do with attracting great people into the profession, giving them access to good professional development. The quality of education can never be better than the quality of teachers, so those things are fundamental, so there’s really a lot of work to do in the Emirates because the gap between investment and outcome is really significant.”

Mr Schleicher presented examples of successful educational practices around the world that contribute to a great school system. The education systems in these high-ranking countries encourage engagement and responsibility, foster lifelong skills-oriented learning, promote connections across subjects, ensure learning is collaborative and sensitive to differences, offer continual assessment with formative feedback and balance autonomy with accountability.

“It was very, very interesting. You can’t ignore solid data showing the journeys of other countries’ school improvement,” said Emma Leigh-Bennett, vice principal of Gems Wellington International School. “I came away thinking there are some further lessons to be borrowed and stolen from other countries, but I also feel very proud and confident where we are on our journey and where we’re going next.”

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