There is a need to enrich higher education to meet future challenges by integrating 21st-century skills into the curriculum and by applying new teaching methods. Numerous studies have examined the integration of 21st-century skills into the higher education curriculum in various countries. This systematic review intends to analyze articles published on the integration of 21st-century skills into higher education. Three overarching questions identified for the systematic review were formulated and refined by PICO. A search for relevant articles was conducted using keywords from electronic databases. The study identified relevant published articles between 2014 and 2023 from Google Scholar, ERIC, and Semantic Scholar electronic databases. Eighteen articles were identified and included in the study by applying eligibility criteria fixed for the systematic review study. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews (PRISMA) criteria were used to organize the articles search and to prepare the systematic review paper. EndNote software was used for reference management. The articles were analyzed and findings were presented by qualitative systematic review. The review findings reveal that the 21st-century skills include learning and innovation skills; information, media, and technology skills; life and career skills to equip the students for future workplaces. The findings also indicate that the integration of 21st-century skills into the curriculum enables the development of students' creativity, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, flexibility and adaptability, initiative and self-direction, social and cross-cultural skills, productivity and accountability, and leadership and responsibility. Moreover, teachers play a significant role in assisting students to develop 21st-century skills by applying different methods of teaching that increase higher education students’ abilities. The study suggests there is a high need for enriching the higher education curriculum by focusing on 21st-century skills to meet the twenty-first-century challenges. Modernizing the curriculum for higher education in Ethiopia by incorporating 21st-century skills will be viewed as a critical national policy intervention issue, as many of the graduate programs that are currently offered were created several years ago and require current knowledge and radical teaching techniques.
| Published in | Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies (Volume 9, Issue 3) |
| DOI | 10.11648/j.tecs.20240903.12 |
| Page(s) | 60-68 |
| Creative Commons |
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Copyright |
Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group |
21st-Century Skills, Integration of 21st Century Skills into the Curriculum, Methods of 21st Century Instruction
| [1] | Ajake, U. E., Oba, A. N., & Ekpo, T. E. (2014). Enriching higher education curriculum to meet the challenges of the 21st century in Nigeria. Journal of Educational and Social Research, 4(3), 21. |
| [2] | AlAli, R. (2024). Enhancing 21st Century Skills Through Integrated STEM Education Using Project-Oriented Problem-Based Learning. Geo Journal of Tourism and Geosites, 53(2), 421-430. |
| [3] | Alismail, H. A., & McGuire, P. (2015). 21st century standards and curriculum: Current research and practice. Journal of Education and Practice, 6(6), 150-154. |
| [4] | Barrot, J. S. (2022). Curriculum 5.0 for the Twenty-First Century Higher Education: A Way to Move Forward. In International Handbook on Education Development in Asia-Pacific (pp. 1-15). Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore. |
| [5] | Erol, H. (2021). Reflections on the 21st century skills into the curriculum of social studies course. International Journal of Education and Literacy Studies, 9(2), 90-101. |
| [6] | Hodges, C. B., et al. (2020). "The difference between emergency remote teaching and online learning." |
| [7] | Kienzler, M., Jantos, A., & Langesee, L. M. (2023). 21ST CENTURY SKILLS IN HIGHER EDUCATION EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF CURRENT CHALLENGES AND POTENTIALS AT A UNIVERSITY OF EXCELLENCE. In INTED2023 Proceedings (pp. 1542-1553). IATED. |
| [8] | Maree & Dirk, (2014). Curriculum Models for the 21st Century: Using Learning Technologies in Higher Education. Springer New York Imprint: Springer, New York, NY, 2014. |
| [9] | Mekala, S., Harishree, C., & Geetha, R. (2020). Fostering 21st-century skills of the students of engineering and technology. Journal of Engineering Education Transformations, 75-88. |
| [10] | Molla, A., et al. (2023). "The current status of faculty members’ pedagogical competence in developing 21st-century skills at selected universities in Ethiopia." Cogent Education 10(2): 2228995. |
| [11] | Nansubuga, F., et al. (2024). Approaches to assessment of twenty-first-century skills in East Africa. The Contextualisation of 21st Century Skills: Assessment in East Africa, Springer International Publishing Cham: 99-116. |
| [12] |
Partnership for 21st Century Learning. (2019). Framework for 21st Century Learning.
http://www.battelleforkids.org/networks/p21/frameworks-resources |
| [13] | Rano, R. (2023, October). INTEGRATING PROJECT-BASED LEARNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION AND FOSTERING 21ST-CENTURY SKILLS. In International Scientific and Current Research Conferences (pp. 179-183). |
| [14] | Shouman, D., et al. (2023). Preparing students with twenty-first-century skills for the future post-pandemic Era. Reimagining Education-The Role of E-Learning, Creativity, and Technology in the Post-Pandemic Era, IntechOpen. |
| [15] | Tucker, S. Y. (2014). Transforming pedagogies: Integrating 21st-century skills and Web 2.0 technology. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, 15(1), 166-173. |
| [16] | Weise, M., et al. (2018). "Robot-ready: human+ skills for the future of work." |
| [17] |
World Economic Forum. (2020). The Future of Jobs Report 2020.
https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-future-of-jobs-report-2020 |
| [18] | Yuval, N. (2019). 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, Vintage. |
APA Style
Birru, Y. T. (2024). The Integration of 21st-Century Skills into the Higher Education Curriculum: Practices and Perspectives Systematic Review. Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies, 9(3), 60-68. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.tecs.20240903.12
ACS Style
Birru, Y. T. The Integration of 21st-Century Skills into the Higher Education Curriculum: Practices and Perspectives Systematic Review. Teach. Educ. Curric. Stud. 2024, 9(3), 60-68. doi: 10.11648/j.tecs.20240903.12
Share This Article
Twitter
Linked In
Facebook
Copy
Download@article{10.11648/j.tecs.20240903.12,
author = {Yonas Tefera Birru},
title = {The Integration of 21st-Century Skills into the Higher Education Curriculum: Practices and Perspectives Systematic Review
},
journal = {Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies},
volume = {9},
number = {3},
pages = {60-68},
doi = {10.11648/j.tecs.20240903.12},
url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.tecs.20240903.12},
eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.tecs.20240903.12},
abstract = {There is a need to enrich higher education to meet future challenges by integrating 21st-century skills into the curriculum and by applying new teaching methods. Numerous studies have examined the integration of 21st-century skills into the higher education curriculum in various countries. This systematic review intends to analyze articles published on the integration of 21st-century skills into higher education. Three overarching questions identified for the systematic review were formulated and refined by PICO. A search for relevant articles was conducted using keywords from electronic databases. The study identified relevant published articles between 2014 and 2023 from Google Scholar, ERIC, and Semantic Scholar electronic databases. Eighteen articles were identified and included in the study by applying eligibility criteria fixed for the systematic review study. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews (PRISMA) criteria were used to organize the articles search and to prepare the systematic review paper. EndNote software was used for reference management. The articles were analyzed and findings were presented by qualitative systematic review. The review findings reveal that the 21st-century skills include learning and innovation skills; information, media, and technology skills; life and career skills to equip the students for future workplaces. The findings also indicate that the integration of 21st-century skills into the curriculum enables the development of students' creativity, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, flexibility and adaptability, initiative and self-direction, social and cross-cultural skills, productivity and accountability, and leadership and responsibility. Moreover, teachers play a significant role in assisting students to develop 21st-century skills by applying different methods of teaching that increase higher education students’ abilities. The study suggests there is a high need for enriching the higher education curriculum by focusing on 21st-century skills to meet the twenty-first-century challenges. Modernizing the curriculum for higher education in Ethiopia by incorporating 21st-century skills will be viewed as a critical national policy intervention issue, as many of the graduate programs that are currently offered were created several years ago and require current knowledge and radical teaching techniques.
},
year = {2024}
}
TY - JOUR T1 - The Integration of 21st-Century Skills into the Higher Education Curriculum: Practices and Perspectives Systematic Review AU - Yonas Tefera Birru Y1 - 2024/09/23 PY - 2024 N1 - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.tecs.20240903.12 DO - 10.11648/j.tecs.20240903.12 T2 - Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies JF - Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies JO - Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies SP - 60 EP - 68 PB - Science Publishing Group SN - 2575-4971 UR - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.tecs.20240903.12 AB - There is a need to enrich higher education to meet future challenges by integrating 21st-century skills into the curriculum and by applying new teaching methods. Numerous studies have examined the integration of 21st-century skills into the higher education curriculum in various countries. This systematic review intends to analyze articles published on the integration of 21st-century skills into higher education. Three overarching questions identified for the systematic review were formulated and refined by PICO. A search for relevant articles was conducted using keywords from electronic databases. The study identified relevant published articles between 2014 and 2023 from Google Scholar, ERIC, and Semantic Scholar electronic databases. Eighteen articles were identified and included in the study by applying eligibility criteria fixed for the systematic review study. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews (PRISMA) criteria were used to organize the articles search and to prepare the systematic review paper. EndNote software was used for reference management. The articles were analyzed and findings were presented by qualitative systematic review. The review findings reveal that the 21st-century skills include learning and innovation skills; information, media, and technology skills; life and career skills to equip the students for future workplaces. The findings also indicate that the integration of 21st-century skills into the curriculum enables the development of students' creativity, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, flexibility and adaptability, initiative and self-direction, social and cross-cultural skills, productivity and accountability, and leadership and responsibility. Moreover, teachers play a significant role in assisting students to develop 21st-century skills by applying different methods of teaching that increase higher education students’ abilities. The study suggests there is a high need for enriching the higher education curriculum by focusing on 21st-century skills to meet the twenty-first-century challenges. Modernizing the curriculum for higher education in Ethiopia by incorporating 21st-century skills will be viewed as a critical national policy intervention issue, as many of the graduate programs that are currently offered were created several years ago and require current knowledge and radical teaching techniques. VL - 9 IS - 3 ER -
Institute of Educational Research, Centre for Higher Education Research and Training, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
