A new report released by the World Economic Forum indicates that the skills you learn in preschool are going to be exactly what employers are looking for in a few years’ time.
It sounds strange, but the reality is that as technology advances, humans really will be replaced by machines in a number of sectors. Manual and clerical workers will find themselves unemployable unless they are re-trained in, of all things, negotiating and sharing. What employers call “soft skills” are going to be in high demand. And where do we start learning these skills? Preschool, of course:
So what skills should workers be acquiring to make sure they have value as the Fourth Industrial Revolution gathers pace? Some may be surprised to learn that skills we develop in pre-school will be valued highly.
David Deming, associate professor of education and economics at Harvard University, argues that soft skills like sharing and negotiating will be crucial. He says the modern workplace, where people move between different roles and projects, closely resembles pre-school classrooms, where we learn social skills such as empathy and cooperation.
Not all that long ago preschool was considered optional for most children. Even in today’s world where the line between daycare and preschool is often blurred, many children still don’t sit in a full-time classroom until they are in kindergarten. While the discussion over universal pre-K is a hot debate in terms of the expectations put on women to return to the workforce and the role government should play in the raising of a child, many critics fail to connect the concepts of preschool education and the job market. We usually think college and jobs, not preschool.
Yet, the reality is that the federal government isn’t the only one thinking ahead when it comes to increasing academic pressure on youth. In fact, it would seem that employers have hopped on the high-pressure bandwagon, now looking to preschool education to prepare tomorrow’s workers for competition today. We aren’t just being ranked against the Chinese kids any longer. Now we’re competing against each other for viable employment the minute we enter through the preschool doors.
But, the push isn’t just for soft skills like the ability to share blocks (or data). Employers are going to be looking for candidates who can successfully synthesize interpersonal communication with mathematical prowess:
Deming shows that in recent years, many jobs requiring only mathematical skills have been automated. Bank tellers and statistical clerks have suffered. Roles which require predominantly social skills (childcare workers, for example) tend to be poorly paid as the supply of potential workers is very large.
The study shows that workers who successfully combine mathematical and interpersonal skills in the knowledge-based economies of the future should find many rewarding and lucrative opportunities.
In other words, public education needs an overhaul if it wants to meet the needs of the job market. The old divide-and-conquer method of bulking math and science away from liberal arts will have to be thrown out the window if the goal is to produce well-rounded individuals with high IQs (Intelligence Quotients) and EQs (Emotional Quotients).
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