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Social and Emotional Skills are Top of Mind Across Canada

When we asked participants across Canada to identify the most important skills for career success, they overwhelmingly identified social and emotional skills. This summary details their concerns, challenges, and suggestions.

Key Takeaways

1

Participants expressed concern that young people struggle to develop social and emotional skills.

2

Lack of skills articulation—where a person fails to communicate their relevant skills and experiences to employers—can be an issue.

3

To prepare students for career success, PSIs must give more weight to social and emotional skills development. To do this, they need to translate SES priorities into applied training and assessment.

Executive Summary

When we asked people across Canada to identify the most important skills for career success, they overwhelmingly identified social and emotional skills (SES), like communication, critical thinking, and interpersonal skills, along with leadership and adaptability.

On behalf of the Future Skills Centre, The Conference Board of Canada held regional roundtable discussions between October 2019 and March 2020. We did this to better understand how skills challenges vary across regions and to identify ways to respond. We met with educators, community organizers, employers, students, and other skills stakeholders in nearly every province and territory

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