Why social and emotional skills matter in 21st century education

Purely knowledge-based models of education – those that prize rote learning over all else – are slowly becoming relics of the 20th century. Education is now moving towards a more well-rounded, whole-child approach that puts greater emphasis on a student’s overall development than on the number of dates they can recite. In this version of education, social and emotional skills are as important as cognitive ones. But what exactly are these skills? How do we measure them? And are they really learnable? Miloš Kankaraš and Francesca Gottschalk, Analysts in the OECD’s Directorate for Education and Skills, discuss the new value placed upon social and emotional skills, as well as the significance of emotional well-being as part of overall development.