With the onset of the 21st century, the entire world has witnessed an era of intense transformation in all areas, whether it is education, global trade, and economy, technology, or society. Recently, the covid-19 pandemic is also throwing up challenges for an individual to cope with its impacts. Naturally, for such times, a different skill–set is required that would enable an individual to cope-up and succeed in facing the challenges in real life, leading to his holistic progress. These skills are addressed as 21st Century Skills. [CBSE]

“The term 21st-century skills refer to a broad set of knowledge, skills, work habits, and character traits that are believed— by educators, school reformers, college professors, employers, and others—to be critically important to success in today’s world.” In simple terms, 21st Century Skills refer to the skills, abilities, and learning dispositions that are required to enable an individual to face the challenges of the 21st-century world.

The twelve 21st Century skills are: 

1. Creativity
2. Collaboration
3. Communication
4. Information literacy
5. Media literacy
6. Technology literacy
7. Flexibility
8. Leadership
9. Initiative
10. Productivity
11. Social skills
12. Critical Thinking

Based on the historical development of 21st-Century Skills, it can be stated that 21st-century skills broadly consist of three main skill sets or 3 Ls - namely, Learning Skills, Life Skills, and Literacy Skills.

• Learning Skills: skills required for the acquisition of new knowledge
• Literacy Skills: skills that help in creating and gaining new knowledge through reading, media, and digital resources
• Life Skills: skills required for successfully leading an everyday life

Here is an infographic that will help us to understand easily how 21st-century skills are divided under these 3 categories:


How to remember it easily? Here’s a trick:

About the author

Smruti Paradarshita is working in Pratham Education Foundation and works on aspects of Content creation for the teacher capacity development portal: Gurushala. Any views expressed are personal.