Digital transformation and emerging technologies have disrupted the workplace, from the skills employees need in the workplace to the entrepreneurial mindset they require in this dynamic and globalized economic system. While the workers of today are navigating this transition, students require skills to lead the working landscape of the future. These skills, known as 21st century skills which encompass enterprising skills (i.e., creativity, innovation, teamwork), are generic skills that are transferable across different jobs and are a powerful predictor of long-term job success and will be increasingly important into the future. The Australian Government calls for enhanced enterprise skills due to their ubiquitous application and benefit across life and work domains. To answer this call, this chapter bridges the knowledge and resource gap that Australian STEAM academics have by explaining the development of a specially designed platform to teach the 21st century skills and enterprise skills.
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The skills of the 20th century emphasised compliance and conformity over creativity. During that time, these skills were necessary within a professional or corporate environment, where employees could secure a good job that would last them for decades. However, these skills are now a relic of the past! So, what are the 21st century skills required of our graduates today? Building on the digital technologies of the third industrial revolution (also known as digital revolution) and foreseeing the 4th industrial revolution (and the convergence of digital, biological, and physical), 21st century graduates need to be able to manage social transformations at a global scale. This means that graduates need to be prepared for dynamic, fast changing workplaces in a context of continuous innovation and economic development. The Australian curriculum lists these graduate skills as problem solving, communication, presenting and pitching, digital literacy, teamwork, critical thinking, creativity, and financial literacy. Therefore, 21st century education requires a shift to help students grow the confidence to practice these skills, especially those in STEM disciplines where they are hardly ever exposed to these soft skills.
Many of the 21st century skills resonate with what is termed enterprise skills. Enterprise skills are used to describe certain abilities that are crucial for today’s graduates in achieving future career success. These skills will help ensure that students are equipped to keep up with the rapid pace of change in the dynamic landscape in which they will work. The skills range from critical thinking and problem solving, to creativity and innovation, communication, and collaboration. There is a focus on a range of skills that fall under the umbrella of “information, media and technology” and they include information literacy, media literacy and information, communications, and technology literacy. Finally, “life and career skills” encompass flexibility and adaptability, initiative and self-direction, social and cross-cultural skills, accountability, leadership, and responsibility (Fadel 2008). Each skill is unique in how it helps graduates, but they all have one quality in common: “they are essential in the age of the Internet” (Stauffer, 2020, p. 1).
Enterprise skills are essential for navigating the working landscape of the future (Foundation for Young Australians [FYA], 2018). Australia lags globally in equipping its youth with these skills. The Australian Government calls for enhanced enterprise skills due to their ubiquitous application and benefit across life and work domains. Enterprise skills afford students with short- and long-term benefits both in and out of the classroom. Engaging with programs of study or courses that have enterprise skills embedded in its learning outcomes can positively influence students’ motivation, attendance, retention, and connectedness. In the long term, having enterprise skills is an effective means of shaping enterprise-related abilities in later life. Furthermore, enterprise skills are generic skills that are transferable across different careers. These skills have been found to be as powerful a predictor of long-term job success as technical knowledge (Committee for Economic Development of Australia, 2015) and will be increasingly important into the future (Casner-Lotto & Barrington, 2006; Kahn et al., 2012; OECD, 2012). Jobs of the future, or those jobs that are least likely to be automated, demand enterprise skills 70% more frequently than the jobs of the past (FYA, 2016). These findings suggest that the growing importance of enterprise skills will continue.
Sir Ken Robinson in his 2011 revised edition of his book “Out of Our Minds” observes that “the more complex the world becomes, the more creative we need to be to meet its challenges” (Robinson, 2011, p. xiii) and this is becoming increasingly clear in education and in the workplace. This is further substantiated by the findings of the FYA (2016) which found that employers ask for enterprise skills as often as technical skills: in an average job advertisement for a young person in 2015, employers are 20% more likely to specify enterprise skills than technical skills. Additionally, some enterprise skills, such as communication and digital skills, are already ubiquitous: these skills are routinely listed across every occupation, industry, and jobs by education level and experience requirements. For example, digital skills are no longer just associated with technology specific fields but are required in jobs as diverse as diverse as veterinary, art and dentistry.