Building Competencies for the Future

To address the disconnect between higher education and the workforce, several colleges are experimenting with microcredentials, certificates, clusters of competencies, and even blockchain to communicate easily their students’ mastery of knowledge, skills, and abilities to employers. Some may scorn this trend as unnecessarily catering to a skills-obsessed world. Teaching up-to-the-minute skills appears to run counter to the concept of teaching students how to learn for a lifetime. Say what you will: These schools are recognizing that learning and work are becoming inseparable and developing applied curricula for our rapidly-evolving knowledge economy.