3.1 Introduction

3.1.1 The Importance of Twenty-First Century Competencies and Their Relevance to the Global and East African Contexts

The dawn of the twenty-first century has brought rapid and sweeping technological and cultural changes to the entire world. As a result, we are facing more numerous and complex problems that require a radically different set of competencies and way of thinking. In a constantly changing world, it is difficult to anticipate the knowledge or skillset necessary for professional success, since it is increasingly challenging to predict the types of jobs we will be doing. We do know that there is an ever-growing need for individuals who can process data, evaluate concepts, and develop arguments. This kind of skillset belongs to individuals who possess the high levels of social understanding and critical-thinking skills needed to make intelligent judgements about public issues (Fong et al., 2017; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2009).

Employers are concerned about young people’s preparedness to face challenges in the workplace, as well as society’s ability to respond to the social and economic issues of the twenty-first century. By 2030, the youth workforce will be over 40% of the population in developing countries, with approximately 11 million young people entering the labour market each year (World Bank, 2015). This could potentially stimulate the economic development of these countries and reduce poverty, but young people must acquire the necessary skills to access and retain productive jobs. While employers value academic skills in young people, they are increasingly prioritising life skills and good values (Rosekrans & Hwang, 2021).

The complexity of contemporary life reveals the inadequate nature of traditional learning methods; education systems must adapt if they are to equip youth with the competencies that the market demands. In this regard, the Learning Metrics Task Force convened by the Brookings Institution and UNESCO’s Institute of Statistics coordinated a global consultation to improve students’ learning outcomes in 118 countries, including 11 countries in Africa. The task force highlighted that in addition to numeracy, literacy, science, and technology, learning should include students’ physical, social, and emotional wellbeing, as well as actual learning to learn (Anderson & Ditmore, 2016). The World Economic Forum (Boston Consulting Group, 2015) conducted a meta-analysis of research in primary and secondary education and clustered the skills needed in the twenty-first century into three macro categories. First, foundational literacies include the skills that students apply to everyday tasks such as literacy, numeracy, ICT literacy, and basic knowledge of the cultural environment in which they live. The second, competencies, describes the qualities of students who know how to deal with complex challenges. Critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, collaboration, and communication are the most relevant competencies. Finally, character qualities, such as persistence, grit, adaptability, leadership, and curiosity describe how students approach a challenging environment.

In the East African context, recent labour market surveys (Guàrdia et al., 2021; Omala et al., 2016) highlight the demand for a workforce that possesses ‘soft skills’ and higher-order thinking skills. The 2019 Echidna Giving Life Skills and Mindset Change Project conducted a study that recognised that for several decades, ministries of education and civil society organizations in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda acknowledged the effectiveness of life skills, especially in combating HIV/AIDS and sexual and gender-based violence, as well as resolving conflicts, promoting peace, nurturing leaders, empowering girls, advancing gender equality, and changing mindsets. There is, however, limited evidence on how this happens, and there is no consensus on the correct approach to fostering these skills from the child’s experience in family and community and through the education system (Deitz et al., 2021; Rosekrans & Hwang, 2021).

3.1.1.1 The Relevance of Twenty-First Century Competencies for Revised School Curricula in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda

Sustainable Development Goal 4.7 (SDG) emphasises the importance of ensuring that all learners acquire not only knowledge but also skills to promote sustainable lifestyles and a culture of equity and excellence. Accordingly, quality education should aim to foster not only cognitive learning objectives but also social and emotional objectives (Care et al., 2018a, b).

Despite this recognition and the explicit demands of the labour market, the education systems have yet to make widespread changes (Jukes et al., 2018). A study (Care et al., 2018b) of policies, curricula, and vision statements from over 150 governments around the world highlighted a gradual increase of a range of skills and competencies—such as communication, critical thinking, problem solving, and collaboration—in policies and curriculum statements. However, the study also showed that almost 90% of the countries has yet to take the necessary steps to implement those polices and bring about a transformational shift in the pedagogical approaches used in the classrooms (Care et al., 2016, September; Care & Anderson, 2016). The challenges are political as well as procedural and technical. In the East African context, the focus on competencies requires a shift in the learning theory, including pedagogical and assessment practices (Cheptoo & Ramadas, 2019).

In Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, students’ learning has remained inadequate, despite the fact that Free Primary Education has increased enrolment. The education systems in these countries are not effectively helping children attain life skills and good values (Cheptoo & Ramadas, 2019). To respond to this challenge in the past decade, the education systems in East Africa have incorporated life skills and values into their policies and curricula; however, the actual implementation and incorporation of teaching and learning practices that foster these skills in the classroom is mostly unexplored. At the time of writing, for instance, teacher education curricula and continuous professional development policies do not nurture teachers’ competencies in enhancing life skills and values, due to lack of clarity on the pedagogical practices that can enhance such skills and values in schools. There is also little evidence on whether teachers themselves possess the life skills and values they need to transfer to learners. Moreover, teachers lack knowledge of what works best to enhance and assess these competencies in the classroom (Giacomazzi et al., 2022a). The following paragraphs describe how the governments of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda have incorporated education for these competencies into their education systems.

The stated goal of Kenya’s education philosophy is to prepare students for social cohesion, human growth, and economic development. The need to make Kenya’s education philosophy more explicit (within policy documents) can be traced back to the Koech Report and subsequent Sessional Paper No. 1 of 2005 on education (Ministry of Education Science and Technology, 2005), research, and training. Before the Koech Report, most education reforms were explicit in terms of educational goals, but the philosophy was somewhat implicit. The current Kenya Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) philosophy aims to provide holistic, quality, and inclusive education and training for greater social cohesion and sustainable development. It devotes special attention to the role of life skills and values at all stages of education, from preschool to senior/upper secondary school (Heto et al., 2020). The expectation is that a student can acquire specific values that encompass the moral, socio-cultural, civic, environmental, cognitive, and physical dimensions at each level. It therefore adopts a more holistic approach to a student’s formation.

In Tanzania, the history of CBC can be traced back to a philosophy of education based on self-reliance, which was promoted by Nyerere (1967). This curriculum aimed at preparing learners to cope with life’s problems in creative and innovative ways. The CBC was developed and adopted in 2005 as the result of a training system gap that negatively affected the quality of graduates being sent into the job market. The previous curriculum was heavily content-based and was not explicit about the kinds of competencies needed. The purpose of the CBC in Tanzania is to equip students with creative and inquisitive minds as well as employability skills needed to perform different roles. Challenges nevertheless persist because students have not been able to practice and apply what they have been learning such that they can solve societal problems as was envisaged (Nkya et al., 2021).

For many years Uganda’s philosophy of education has been criticised for not responding to the needs of society, because the country’s mode of teaching is largely content-centred and exam-oriented. This traditional mode of education has been blamed for producing individuals with no values or skills. To address such public concerns, the Ministry of Education and Sports through the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC), set out to review the curriculum at all levels. The review process began with the development of an Early Childhood Development Curriculum (ECDC) framework in 2005. This was followed by the review of the primary curriculum, which emphasised the use of a familiar language at the early stages of learning. The biggest highlight of the review, however, was the launch of the new lower secondary school’s competency-based curriculum (NCDC, 2019). The new curriculum emphasises what learners are supposed to do, not what they are supposed to know. This makes it adaptable to society’s evolving needs and presents the country with an opportunity to nurture learners who possess what the curriculum refers to as ‘generic skills’ and values.

3.1.1.2 Reconciling Western Conceptualizations of Twenty-First Century Competencies with East African Perspectives

While the development of twenty-first century skills is perceived as key to a young person’s achievement of positive academic and life outcomes around the world, it is evident that most of the research studies on this topic have been dedicated to the investigation of these competencies in Western, industrialized, and high income contexts (Giacomazzi et al., 2022a; Jukes et al., 2021a). This is concerning if we consider the case of sub-Saharan Africa. Even though it is one of the youngest and most populated regions in the world, there are few studies dedicated to the investigation of life skills and values in this context (Deitz et al., 2021; Jukes et al., 2021b; Rosekrans & Hwang, 2021). It has been noted that tools used to measure these competencies in non-Western contexts have been borrowed from Western literature (Jukes et al., 2021a). This leaves no room for different understandings and conceptualizations of the skills to be measured. Moreover, while interventions aimed at enhancing social and emotional skills in Western contexts consistently demonstrate positive academic and behavioural results (Taylor et al., 2017), in non-Western contexts, evidence is less conclusive (Deitz et al., 2021; Rosekrans & Hwang, 2021). This might suggest that the measurement tools or the interventions implemented do not respond to the needs in all contexts. Moreover, there are studies that demonstrate differential impact of the same intervention in different contexts (Deitz et al., 2021).

According to the science of cognition, children’s development is influenced by the culture and language of their community. Culture, as a system of shared beliefs, customs, and values of a community or society, shapes how people make sense of their reality and determines how they interact with it. These factors play a key role in defining which life skills and values a specific group of people deems worthy or desirable (Giacomazzi, 2022; Jones et al., 2021). Through interaction with their community of origin, children are exposed to cultural practices that contribute to their development (Bronfenbrenner, 1986). According to Rogoff (2003), a child grows while participating in the community; it is a process of transformation through participation in the group of people to which one belongs. It is for this reason that life skills and values can be understood only through the lens of culture; they may vary and evolve differently, depending on cultural circumstances.

As shown, governments in East Africa are clear about the need for children to develop twenty-first century skills, under umbrella terms such as ‘core competencies’ and ‘generic skills’. Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda have all rolled out competency-based curricula which include these skills, but the three countries are now grappling with the challenges of implementing these key reforms. Across the world, the implementation of such reforms requires a shift in learning and assessment practices, which remains challenging for education systems (Anderson & Ditmore, 2016).

The first challenge that needs to be addressed is the lack of understanding of the nature of these skills and how they are manifested and perceived by the local contexts. A recent systematic review of the literature on the topic (Giacomazzi et al., 2022a) highlighted that few researchers who aim to assess or enhance life skills in sub-Saharan countries have recognized the importance of starting from the local understandings of the skills, and few studies have investigated these local understandings (Jukes et al., 2021b). The lack of attention to the local interpretations of a skill results in the development of pedagogical approaches and assessment tools that are irrelevant to learners (Giacomazzi et al., 2022a). This has clear repercussions for what happens in the classroom, since the way the curriculum presents the skills shapes the learning objectives and the pedagogical and assessment strategies in the classroom (Care et al., 2018b; Jukes et al., 2021b). It is therefore paramount to investigate the skills constructs that the curricula aim to develop, and so identify and describe the elements that might demonstrate that a person possess the skills in a specific context.

Another important element in understanding life skills is the fact that the demonstration of skills differs in relation to a person’s stage of development and level of proficiency in that skill. The development of skills implies the ability to apply the skills to increasingly complex situations. The skills are gradually and progressively acquired in more sophisticated ways, which can be described differently depending on the context and targeted population (Care et al., 2018b). Nurturing a skill implies the need to identify a learning progression that applies across contexts in which the skill is demonstrated and can be enhanced. The concept of learning progression is common in most educational contexts and is widely understood by teachers and students. For example, in learning mathematical concepts, one builds on sequentially defined steps, and at each level, teachers can identify what they can expect from their students. Similarly, if teachers aim to enhance a specific skill in students, they should describe how students develop the skill at different levels of complexity (Care et al., 2018b). Yet with twenty-first century skills, the evidence of what works at different levels of sophistication is not very clear.

Another challenge is related to how one should measure twenty-first century skills. The lack of knowledge about the learning progressions that describe these skills poses major challenges in terms of how to assess these skills. As a consequence, the majority of the tools used to assess these skills in sub-Saharan Africa present issues of reliability and validity (Deitz et al., 2021). Measurement tools that were validated in one context might not be relevant to another.

To conclude, while the process of globalization is unavoidable and heavily influences the conceptualization of these generic skills, we should look to promote intercultural competency (Deardorff, 2006), a plurality of epistemological beliefs and worldviews, and sensitivity to specific contexts (Assié-Lumumba, 2016; Lee, 2017). Constructs developed within Western culture may not be universally applied to all contexts; their transferability to the local context must be questioned and investigated (Lee, 2017). In the East African context, the system reforms and the practices of nurturing and measuring generic skills should promote the use of methods and tools that are respectful of the local perspectives. The starting point for development and use of such tools should be the contextual definition of these skills.

3.2 Method

In August 2020, the Assessment of Life Skills and Values in East Africa (ALiVE) team addressed the gap in existing literature by exploring the understanding of collaboration, problem solving, self-awareness, and respect in the East African context. Each of these constructs are represented in the education systems of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.

3.2.1 Study Design

A qualitative approach allowed deep immersion into local realities through rapid ethnographic interviews: an approach previously used in Uganda (Boothby et al., 2017). In a rapid ethnographic study, the timeframe for fieldwork is limited; such studies are usually conducted in places where time and resources are not always available. Rapid ethnographers go into the field with a well-structured interview guide and a narrow set of research questions.

The central aim of this design was to provide rich insights into how East Africa views life skills and values in order to document how the selected skills and values relate to the culture and to identify the perspectives and practices of adolescents, parents, and educators in their context.

The study was conducted during COVID-19 pandemic. During the time of the data collection, schools in Kenya and Uganda were still closed and the communities were still affected by restrictions in terms of mobility. It was also a time in which media were often referring to the lack of like skills and values in youth as a challenge the society had to face in times of pandemic.

3.2.2 Sample

The study sample included adolescent boys and girls from 13 to 17 years of age; parents and guardians; and key persons such as teachers, social workers, and local leaders from 15 districts across the three countries. The researchers purposefully sampled study participants in areas with the following characteristics: (a) urban, low-income areas within the capital city; (b) rural, agriculture-rich, and within 100 km from the capital city; (c) rural areas, 300–400 km from the capital city; (d) rural, pastoralist areas, 400–800 km from the capital city; and (e) those with different characteristics from those mentioned above, including fishing communities. The study randomly sampled two villages from each selected district. From each selected village, at least four interviews were conducted with adolescents (two of each gender, and with a mix of those in primary school, secondary school, vocational training, and those out of school); four interviews with parents (two of interviewed adolescents and two of non-interviewed adolescents, while mixing fathers and mothers); and four interviews with key persons (teachers, social workers, and other people who consistently work with adolescents). The researchers interviewed a total of 368 participants (80 from Kenya, 55 from Tanzania, and 95 from Uganda). Of these, 76 participants were adolescents (36 males, 40 females); 78 were parents (35 males, 43 females); and 76 were teachers (42 males, 34 females).

3.2.3 Tools

The researchers conducted rapid interviews using a structured interview guide. The participants were asked to reflect on a specific skill (or value) and think about possible words or ways of defining the skill. The researchers then invited them to state and explain it in their mother tongue. Then they asked the participants to think about an adolescent (aged 13–17) they knew who clearly demonstrated the skill. They also invited the participants to reflect on the behaviours this adolescent displayed and on how they could assess whether another adolescent had that skill. Finally, the interviewer would ask a question about the systems that could allow an adolescent to nurture the skill in his or her life (i.e., family, school, peers, etc.).

3.2.4 Coding and Data Analysis

The analysis of the content generated codes related to the definition of the construct as described by the participants, the set of subskills or dimensions related to each construct, the dispositions and values the adolescents displayed, the suggested methods to assess the skill, and the support systems and other factors that could enhance the skill. As recommended by Gibbs (2018) and using the Dedoose program (version 8.3.41.), the researchers conducted an analysis of the understanding of each skill and the one value—paying specific attention to elements of contextualisation in contrast with what had been established from the literature review.

3.3 Discussion

The full reports of the contextualisation studies elaborate on the local conceptualisation of the three skills and the value that were investigated (RELI, 2023). This section discusses the key features that emerged: the communitarian understanding of the self; the importance of nurturing positive relationships; collaboration as means to help the community; and the strong focus on respect.

What emerges prominently in the East African context is that personal identity incorporates more communitarian than individualistic features compared to the Western descriptions of the self, as it has been highlighted by Grosser and Lombard (2008): “We have to encounter the collective we, before we encounter the collective I. I am only a person through others” (p. 1368).

In problem solving, for instance, the skill is mostly aimed at resolving interpersonal conflicts; the findings suggest that the life of each adolescent is closely related with the life of their community, whether it is the family, the school, or the larger society. Even in the process of problem solving, the participants highlighted how crucial it is for them to compare their views about challenges facing them with those of more experienced peers or older family or community members. In this regard, for instance, the Baganda tribe in Uganda promotes a sense of community by underscoring the importance of respecting elders and by discouraging selfish attitudes that aim only at achieving personal interests (Kassimir, 1998). The findings suggest that self-empowerment can be achieved through fostering a sense of community belonging (Giacomazzi et al., 2022b). There seems to be a fine line in problem solving between incorporating others’ advice and over-reliance on someone else’s suggestions, but this may suggest the need to rethink how epistemic beliefs and perspectives are usually transferred across cultures and applied to sub-Saharan contexts.

The findings related to problem solving resonate with understandings that emerge from interviews on self-awareness in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Notably, some of the most frequently mentioned competencies in the contextualization study were self-confidence, relationship skills, communication skills, and guidance and counselling. Self-awareness is strongly influenced by the relational components of East African life. In this context, the values and behaviours that are more frequently relatable to a self-aware adolescent are related to respect, positive conduct, obedience, discipline, humility, and fearing God.

Working together with the aim of helping the community is a feature of the East African understanding of collaboration. The participants in this study did not emphasise common goals, but rather the self in relationship with the community. Adolescents in this context appear to collaborate largely in solving problems affecting their community. Here, collaboration is not reduced to the accomplishment of a task in the family or at school, but it is seen as a way of conceiving of oneself; collaboration is driven more by the need to stick together than by the goal to be achieved. In the literature, collaboration is mostly established to complete a task that would not be possible to accomplish alone (Hesse et al., 2015). Similar to the findings on the self-awareness and problem solving skills, the values associated with collaboration are related to respect, unity, trust, and love. The value of unity emerges in the interviews as a synonym of collaboration (Fontana et al., 2022). Sharing responsibilities and having strong relationship skills are therefore considered necessary for the process of collaboration.

The study revealed similar patterns for adolescents who are perceived to value respect: they exhibit strong relationship and communication skills, guidance and counselling skills, teamwork or collaboration skills, self-confidence, empathy, and self-regulation skills. At the same time, several participants connected respect with valuing others and further elaborated by referring to caring for others, considering others important, and recognizing their worth. On the other hand, self-respect—meaning one’s self-understanding and self-knowledge—did not emerge strongly from the interviews.

Table 3.1 compares various frameworks of social and emotional learning skills with the findings of the four contextualization studies on problem solving, collaboration, self-awareness, and respect.

Table 3.1 Comparison of life skills and the value of respect across the contextualisation study and published literature
Full size table

The differences between the skills conceptualisations of the ethnographic studies and those present in the literature from Europe and North America need to be considered when designing assessments and integrating them into the curriculum. When assessing life skills and values, the use of imported tools from different cultural environments may produce results that are not relevant to the situation on the ground and may misrepresent actual competencies. Also, lower performance of populations in low- and middle-income countries could be due in part to the way the tool was designed, to social biases, or to the lack of relevance of the tools to the context.

Note that most of the tools developed in Western countries use self-report measures (Deitz et al., 2021; Smart et al., 2019). Self-report tools offer valuable information about people’s perceptions of their own abilities, and the information they gather can predict future life outcomes. Yet people often overestimate or underestimate their performance based on their social bias. In the East African context, the importance people give to what the community members think about them may also influence respondents’ perceptions. That is why it is important that tool developers consider various methods of assessment, beyond self-reporting, that could reduce such biases. Observation protocols, performance-based or social-network measures, as well as scenario-based or task-based tools might be more appropriate to assess life skills in a specific context.

The contextualisation studies of the competencies investigated by ALiVE resonate with the findings of similar studies on critical thinking conducted in South Africa. For instance, Grosser and Lombard (2008) and Madondo (2018) advocated for traditional African cultures to be considered when designing critical thinking assessment tools. These authors showed how the African communitarian and altruistic lifestyle differs from the Western individualistic one. This, for example, leads to the common practice in the African context of avoiding a rhetorical method of investigating or arguing about a problem with others. Consequently, it is quite uncommon to find parents and teachers who highlight the importance of argumentation (Grosser & Lombard, 2008). For this reason, approaches aimed at assessing skills like problem solving or critical thinking in the classroom should consider the communitarian approach to life that encourages collaborative approaches to addressing a challenging situation (Giacomazzi et al., 2022a). Similarly, in East Africa, assessment methods that rely on rhetorical argumentation or dialogical explanation of one’s standpoint should be discouraged in favour of methods that allow for collaborative resolution of problems.

3.4 Conclusions

The contextualisation process of twenty-first century skills should begin by conceptualising the skills that need to be measured in a specific setting. The ALiVE project’s approach to investigating the meaning of collaboration, problem solving, self-awareness, and respect in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda showed that the local understandings of these skills is influenced mainly by the communitarian concept of the self, which is a characteristic of the East African culture.

When designing a data collection tool for assessing life skills in the East African context, there are several conceptual, ethnographic, and epistemological elements to be considered—not only at the initial stage of conceptualising the framework of a tool, but also in the process of data collection and data analysis. The epistemological beliefs of the targeted population might differ from those of the researchers; this conceptualisation study thus offers useful insights for the contextual definition of the behaviours that manifest a specific skill in the population of interest. It goes beyond the problem of language and of an accurate translation of the tool; the choice of the assessment method and of the toolbox, as well as the definition of a rubric for describing the observable traits of those with a low, medium, or high level of each component of the skill, should be driven by an in-depth understanding of the context in which the assessment tool is to be used. In the case of tools developed for adolescents, for example, the involvement of parents and educators who know the young people to be assessed, their behaviour, and their culture, is important for ensuring appropriateness (including age-appropriateness) and relevance. This highlights the importance of considering context at every level of the educational and assessment process.