{"id":359387,"date":"2025-09-18T10:44:52","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T05:14:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/?p=359387"},"modified":"2025-09-18T10:44:52","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T05:14:52","slug":"new-report-by-cambridge-identifies-five-priorities-to-prepare-students-for-a-changing-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/new-report-by-cambridge-identifies-five-priorities-to-prepare-students-for-a-changing-world\/","title":{"rendered":"New Report by Cambridge Identifies Five Priorities to Prepare Students for a Changing World"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Foster greater self-management skills to help students navigate uncertainty<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Reframe subject knowledge to increase its value in age of AI<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Signpost skills more clearly so students recognise they&#8217;re prepared for the future<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Strengthen oracy to help students build meaningful relationships<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Strengthen the role of school as the place to build purposeful connections<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">A major new report from the International Education group at Cambridge University Press &amp; Assessment (Cambridge) captures the voices of nearly 7,000 teachers and students across 150 countries. It offers a unique view of how students experience education today and the skills and attributes they think are important for a future being shaped rapidly by technological advance, climate pressures, and shifting global dynamics.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\"><strong>The report,\u00a0Navigating the future: Preparing learners to thrive in a changing world,\u00a0<\/strong>draws on responses from 3,021 teachers and 3,840 students worldwide, alongside insights from experts in education, social science, psychology, technology, government, and policy. It explores how students and their teachers feel about students\u2019 readiness for the future, the skills they value, and the challenges they perceive in developing them. Both groups see opportunities in digital technologies to enhance learning, but voice concerns about distraction and risks to critical thinking and communication skills.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Findings from the research include:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul class=\"v1bwlistdisc\">\n<li><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">teachers and students view\u00a0<b>self-management<\/b>\u00a0skills as critical for the future, but it was selected as the skill most difficult to teach (23%) and learn (19%) from a list of options.<\/span>\n<ul class=\"v1bwlistcircle\">\n<li><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">technology is central to this challenge: while it supports learning, students worry about distraction and over-reliance on devices, and 88% of teachers perceive attention spans to be getting shorter.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\"><b>communication skills\u00a0<\/b>(including social skills and empathy) are viewed as critical for success. Students value these skills for understanding the perspectives of others and feeling included. However, 61% of teachers say fear of judgement is a challenge in helping students develop their interpersonal skills, and 25% of teachers list this as the single greatest challenge.<\/span>\n<ul class=\"v1bwlistcircle\">\n<li><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Psychologically safe, inclusive classrooms are essential for developing effective communication skills. Schools should purposefully create environments where students can experiment with language, consider different ways of communication, make and learn from mistakes, and grow in confidence.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\"><b>subject knowledge<\/b>\u00a0is essential for progression through education but seen as less important beyond it. This suggests subject knowledge is viewed as a short-term \u201ccurrency\u201d rather than a lifelong asset.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Fewer than half of students surveyed\u00a0<b>feel prepared<\/b> for their next step in education (48%) or their future beyond it (45%). But teachers are more confident: 67% feel their students are well prepared for their next step in education, and 59% say their students are well prepared for life after education.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\"><b>Michael Stevenson, Senior Consultant OECD High Performing Systems for Tomorrow,\u00a0<\/b>said: \u201cWhat inspires me about this work is that Cambridge have put students at the heart of it. The message is clear. If young people are to flourish, they need a way to develop purpose, intent and agency. That\u2019s the role of education \u2013 and that\u2019s why education needs to change.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\"><b>International education ideally placed<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">With its diverse contexts and communities, international education provides fertile ground for innovation \u2013 whether in signposting skills, strengthening oracy, supporting wellbeing, or helping students navigate uncertainty. As the world\u2019s largest provider of international education for 3-to 19-year-olds, Cambridge works with over 10,000 schools in 160 countries and partners with more than 50 governments worldwide.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\"><b>Rod Smith, Group Managing Director for International Education at Cambridge,<\/b>\u00a0said: &#8220;This research gives us a deeper understanding of how students and teachers are experiencing change. What strikes me most is the clarity with which it highlights a simple truth: never has the role of schools and teachers been more important. At a time of profound global change, great schools, great teachers and a clear, purposeful curriculum remain the foundations of great education.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\"><b>Next steps<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Cambridge has begun turning the insights from this report into action, with initiatives underway including:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul class=\"v1bwlistdisc\">\n<li><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">a new Skills Profile tool to help students identify and develop skills alongside subject knowledge.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">teacher resources on developing executive function skills, created in partnership with Sara Baker, Professor of Developmental Psychology and Education, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">a global Education Summit and the launch of a permanent student consultative forum to guide future work.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\">an extended Wellbeing Curriculum for students aged 14 and over.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino, serif; font-size: 12pt;\"><b>Dr Iwan Syahril, Global Education Advisor and former Director General at Ministry of Education, Indonesia<\/b>, said: \u201cThe findings already offer powerful signals for what education must confront and design for. With deeper multi-stakeholder integration and a bold, future-oriented lens, this work has the potential to influence global practice at scale.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Foster greater self-management skills to help students navigate uncertainty Reframe subject knowledge to increase its value in age of AI Signpost skills more clearly so students recognise they&#8217;re prepared for the future Strengthen oracy to help students build meaningful relationships Strengthen the role of school as the place to build purposeful connections A major new [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9231],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-359387","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}