The voices of the largest generation of young people in history need to be heard, now more than ever. That is why, as part of this year’s World Youth Skills Day, the World Economic Forum polled 11,000 young people across 136 countries, via UNICEF’s U-Report Platform, giving them the chance to speak about the opportunities and challenges they face when it comes to having the career they want. This has helped to capture the perspectives of young people all over the world about the future of work and skills.

The research suggests that today’s education system isn’t fully meeting the needs of young people, such as providing them with the essential employability skills that they will need to achieve their career goals. “The one thing that would make the biggest difference to me is to actually learn the skills that the job market will require from me once I graduate from university,” said 21-year-old Ulises Brengi, a landscape architecture student from Argentina.

We were pleased to see that so many young people value the importance of essential skills such as Leadership, Teamwork and Listening when it comes to building a successful career. Sana Farooq, co-founder of a social enterprise in Pakistan called The Red Code, said, “Every day, I interact with people with disabilities, with community leaders, with women and with children. Listening to them is key as it’s the only way to begin to understand the problems they are facing.”

At The Skills Builder Partnership, we’re committed to equipping young people with the essential skills that underpin success in employment. According to 93% of business leaders, skills like Teamwork, Speaking, and Listening are now considered crucial to young people’s success in the post-Covid economy. (The Careers and Enterprise Company, 2020.)

We’ve developed the Skills Builder Universal Framework, which breaks down each essential skill - such as Creativity, Problem Solving and Aiming High- into sixteen measurable steps. There is also detailed guidance available for skill assessment, what you need to know, and how to put it into practice.

We also provide a suite of tools for building essential skills in your context:

· Skills Builder Benchmark - designed to help you understand your strengths and weaknesses within each of the eight essential skills, and identify next steps for development using personalised Skill Reports.

· Skills Builder Launchpad - short and engaging modules that support you to build every step of the Universal Framework, with real life applications for education, employment or wider life.

· Skills Builder Hub - teachers can access a huge array of resources for teaching essential skills and tracking progress.

‍