In these uncertain times, do our students require new skills?

In their article “5 Strategies for Reinventing Your Career in Uncertain Times” published in the Harvard Business Review, David Lancefield – a catalyst, a strategist and a coach for leaders- and Dorie Clark  – a marketing strategist and keynote speaker who teaches at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and has been named one of the Top 50 business thinkers in the world by Thinkers50- offer five strategies to help anyone reinvent their career: First, explore a range of options, including the unthinkable. Second, imagine your best possible future. Third, build up your capabilities. Fourth, start small. Finally, be ruthless about what you need to leave behind. Ultimately, there are no easy answers, but with these strategies, you’ll have the tools you need to deal with whatever the future may bring.

Why do the students of top international schools in Gurgaon require new skills in these volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times? To survive. To overcome challenges. To be able to respond to unpredictable situations.

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Top International Schools in Gurgaon enrich their curricula by incorporating life skills to prepare future generations for the VUCA world. International Baccalaureate, who had long foreseen the necessity of developing skills in students instead of merely building their content knowledge, is a forerunner in education. 

Throughout their studies in the Middle Years Programme, IB MYP students develop their Approaches to Learning skills, namely, Thinking, Self- Management, Research, Collaboration and Communication. These skills are skillfully incorporated into the learning process, both explicitly and implicitly. Students learn to apply their knowledge in unknown contexts and situations and in this process they create a new understanding and extend their learning throughout disciplines.

Thinking outside the box, being creative, self-confident, resilient, balanced and principled, students in top international schools in Gurgaon who offer the the International Baccalaureate are world-ready. They are ready to create a better future, a sustainable future, a future that is compassionate and responsible.

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The distinguished fellow at the Institute for the Future, and best-selling author, Bob Johansen (2013), said that “The ultimate dilemma is to take the VUCA world and change it from a threatening thing, which it certainly is, into a world that is not only threatening but also laden with opportunity.”

“An increasingly VUCA world can be perceived as either challenging or threatening to different people in different contexts. One solution to overcoming both threats and challenges is to have the skills, safeguards and tools to adapt to new environments.”

“When equipped with meta-learning strategies—and access to teachers and mentors—humans may very well be in a position to thrive, as lifelong learners, in the same circumstances where machines blunder. Training meta-learning strategies can also provide individuals with a tool—and a valuable sense of agency—to embrace uncertainty as an opportunity for learning.”

Students in top international schools in Gurgaon are given agency to explore the world around them and be change-makers. They are equipped with tools to adapt to new environments. Every unit culminates in service as an action activity which gives the opportunity to develop various learning outcomes. Throughout their MYP studies, students carry out self-initiated, as well as school initiated activities covering these learning outcomes and as a result, they develop the following skills:

But of course, they do.

Lilit Harutyunyan

MYP Coordinator /Lancers International School

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