Transversal competencies or the 21st century skills have been in the global discourse for a long time. However, employers have been reporting that children do not learn competencies that are highly regarded for their future workplace as well as social life. In surge of the 4th industrial revolution (4IR), type of available work is changing repeatedly and replacing the traditional ones, making the presence of 21st century skills or transversal competencies among children central to their learning experiences.
In this context, NEQMAP, the network that supports countries through capacity development, research and knowledge sharing activities in the area of learning assessments, organized a Capacity Development Workshop on “Promoting Transversal Competencies (TVC) across Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment” from 16th to 19th September 2019 in Manila, Philippines in collaboration with Global Resources for Assessment Curriculum and Evaluation (GRACE), the Bureau of Educational Assessment of the Department of Education (DepEd-BEA) Philippines, Brookings Institution and with the generous support of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE). Aurin Huq represented IID at the workshop.
The workshop was designed to ensure that participants have sufficient understanding of the nature of the competencies in order for them to analyze their implications for curriculum reform, pedagogical approaches and assessment design. With these understandings, participants will be better equipped to analyze implementation paths consequent upon inclusion of the competencies agenda within national education policy.
IID attended the 4-day long workshop as a non-governmental, civil society organization with 50 other participants and education professionals from 14 countries. Through the workshop IID strengthened their knowledge about the concept and integration strategy of Transversal Competencies in curriculum and assessment and plans to assess the tool IID is using for PAL Network’s common learning assessment of numeracy.
