Article
The same skills, only different
Why we need more research on soft skills in the Global South.
By Morgan Kabeer
Critical thinking, motivation, the ability to communicate and get along with others: most would agree that employees should possess these “soft skills” to be successful in the workforce. Soft skills are essential for navigating today’s ever-changing economies and technological advancements. Now more than ever, youths transitioning into the labor market need to possess strong soft skills to get their first job and grow their careers.
Today, on International Youth Day, the focus is “green skills for youth,” ensuring we give youths the skills they need to thrive in a green economy. Although not mentioned in the Green General Skill Index, soft skills are recognized as being increasingly important for developing and supporting a sustainable and resource-efficient society.
There is no standard definition of soft skills, and there are many different types of skills covered under the “soft skill” umbrella. USAID offers a broad definition: soft skills are “cognitive, social, and emotional skills, behaviors, and personal qualities that help people to navigate their environment, relate well to others, perform well, and achieve their goals.”
The Global South has the largest and fastest growing youth population and is also where the effects of climate change are felt the hardest. It is critical that we implement effective, evidence-based solutions to support youths across the Global South with soft skill development. However, most evidence on youths and soft skills is from the Global North, where the context is vastly different from the Global South. As we’ve seen many times at Busara, contextual differences can render findings from these studies irrelevant or misleading.
Below, I discuss three such areas, all of which are key for understanding how to support youths with soft skill development. Without filling these knowledge gaps, we’ll be unable to create and implement impactful solutions for youths.
Critical thinking, motivation, the ability to communicate and get along with others: most would agree that employees should possess these “soft skills” to be successful in the workforce.
1. Identifying Highly-Demanded Soft Skills
We don’t want to “upskill” youths in all soft skills. Our goal is to make sure youths have the soft skills they need to succeed. Therefore, we would want to offer solutions that support youths in developing the specific soft skills demanded by employers.
Researchers have already conducted several rigorous studies to identify the soft skills that are in high demand by the economy. For example, from 1980 to 2012, employment and wages in the US grew for jobs that require social skills relative to other jobs. According to this research, social skills enable coordination, allowing employees within a firm to specialize and work together more effectively. This coordination and specialization cannot be easily replaced by technology, thereby increasing the value of social skills. Furthermore, another study found that social skills are expected to become more valuable in the future, as employers in the US seek to reduce coordination costs and “negotiate the cultural context” to expand globally.
Unfortunately, most studies identifying highly-demanded soft skills weren’t conducted in countries across the Global South. Because the context is markedly different from the US, we cannot cleanly translate these findings from one place to another.
Take social skills as an example. They’re important for the labor force in the US because they improve coordination and specialization within big, multinational firms. However, most firms in Kenya are smaller on average in terms of number of employees, and many operate in the informal economy. In this context, are social skills less demanded by the workforce because there are fewer employees, so coordination isn’t as crucial? Or, are social skills in higher demand because informal firms rely heavily on social networks to grow and thrive in the absence of formal structure and organizational hierarchy? There’s no conclusive evidence to support or refute either of these theories.
To further complicate this issue, the labor force will likely demand different soft skills in response to the rapidly changing economies in the Global South. More and more youths in Sub-Saharan Africa are developing a “portfolio of work,” where they earn income by doing many small jobs across different sectors. While this mixed livelihood concept isn’t new – workers have long combined formal wage labor, self-employment, and agricultural work – the gig economy and “jobtech” platforms are making this approach to employment more prevalent and less risky.
What is the role of soft skills within a portfolio of work? What soft skills are necessary to run a successful portfolio? As we think about the soft skills youths need for the workforce, we also need to think carefully about where the workforce is headed.
2. Developing Soft Skills in the Classroom
Schools play a pivotal role in developing the soft skills demanded by the workforce. With this in mind, policymakers, educators, and researchers are exploring ways to encourage soft skill development in the classroom. For example, in the Global North, secondary school and higher education teachers often use debate, socratic inquiry, and case studies to foster critical thinking among students. These approaches require students to confidently express their opinions, question their teachers and peers, and critically analyze facts and assumptions, helping them develop the skills they need to reach sound conclusions.
The effectiveness of approaches like debate, socratic inquiry, and case studies is contingent on several underlying contextual factors. To fully engage with these approaches, students must be comfortable with questioning. These types of students mostly live in contexts where the average person believes they can control and predict future outcomes, compared to accepting “destiny,” leading them to question more frequently, openly, and intensely. The researchers also state that individualism encourages participation in critical thinking exercises because students must assert their own opinions, even if these opinions are in opposition to what everyone else is thinking. Finally, students are more likely to develop critical thinking skills through approaches like debate if they’re debating in either their native language or a language in which they are highly proficient.
Comfort with questioning and individualism are attributes typically associated with Global North countries. Similarly, students throughout the Global North are usually taught in their native language. Therefore, approaches like debate, Socratic Inquiry, and case studies are generally effective at increasing critical thinking skills among students in the Global North.
So, what about students in the Global South? How can we effectively teach critical thinking in schools where questioning isn’t the norm, cultures are more collectivist, and the language of instruction is often the second (or third) for students? We’re not sure. Most studies that use these approaches to teach critical thinking in Sub-Saharan Africa “did not report any adaptation to the local context in order to address the challenges linked to language or cultural dispositions.”
There is some evidence on how to teach soft skills in schools throughout the Global South (e.g., Educate! developed an impactful model for teaching grit and self-efficacy in schools across Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda). However, the research is limited. Schools present a tremendous opportunity to teach youths soft skills. We need to take advantage by developing contextually-appropriate ways to encourage soft-skill development in the classroom.
3. Measuring Soft Skills
Suppose we identify the soft skills youths need to obtain employment in the green economy across the Global South. Then, working closely with educators and policymakers, we design contextually-appropriate ways to teach these soft skills in schools. How do we know if our teaching strategies are improving soft skill development? We need valid and reliable methods for measuring soft skills.
Soft skills are inherently difficult to measure. Observing whether someone possesses social or critical thinking skills, for instance, is rather subjective. Additionally, there is no straightforward way to quantify the intensity and mastery of these skills. How can we quantify if one person has more social skills than someone else? How would we know whether someone’s skills reach the required threshold for success in the green economy?
The most commonly used method for measuring soft skills is self-reported scales. Study participants are presented with a statement and asked how strongly they agree or disagree, or how frequently or infrequently they partake in an activity or exhibit a certain behavior.
Self-reported scales are straightforward to implement and interpret. However, they can produce biased results. For example, they are prone to reference bias, where study participants respond based on how they compare to the norms of their social group, rather than providing an honest assessment of their own skills. In these cases, it’s easy to see how contextual factors – collectivist versus individualist cultures, tendency to accept “destiny” versus predicting and controlling the future, etc. – could influence someone’s self-assessment of their social skills, critical thinking skills, and other soft skills.
These measurements become more inaccurate if we don’t contextualize the definitions for the soft skills we’re interested in measuring. Youths across countries and cultures may interpret key concepts differently. If we ask them questions on self-motivation, youths in Global South countries may respond differently than their counterparts in the Global North because they have a different interpretation of “self-motivation.”
We may even ask the wrong questions altogether. Youth who possess strong soft skills may behave differently in the Global South than in the Global North, or they may respond differently to survey questions. If we base our measurement tools on definitions from the Global North, they won’t be designed to capture data on how these skills are developed and exhibited in the Global South.
As a result of this failure to contextualize, we may erroneously conclude that youths across the Global South lack certain soft skills. Meanwhile, the soft skills are there, but we don’t know how to ask about them, and we don’t know how they’re manifested.
What now?
When it comes to youth and soft skills in the Global South, there are a lot of unanswered questions. What soft skills should youth in countries across the Global South possess to succeed in the workforce? How can we help them develop these skills using structures and systems that are already in place, like schools? How can we accurately and reliably measure soft skills?
To answer these questions effectively, we need to put context at the center of everything we do. Taking findings from studies in the Global North and applying them to the Global South without contextualizing interventions, definitions, and measurements can lead to ineffective programming and wasted resources.
If we understand soft skills more deeply, we will solve a key piece of the puzzle for youth employment. With the right soft skills, youths will be more employable for jobs in the green economy, and more generally across the Global South. This influx of highly-skilled youths in the workforce will drive the green economy’s transformation, helping the industry reach its full potential, and paving the way for a brighter and greener future.
