Soft Skills Development in Higher Education

Karimova Nilufar Ummatqul Qizi

doi:10.13189/ujer.2020.080528

Abstract

Nowadays, as a result of economic changes, employers are eager to look for employees with applied skills rather than cognitive skills. Diplomas are not being considered as a definitive indicator of students' professional intelligence as it used to be before. Fourth Industry Revolution has dramatically changed labor market and knowledge is now acknowledged as strength of productivity and economic growth, and information technology has acquired great importance. In such a situation, whether employees start their career or change a job, they can show successful performance, if they can change and update themselves continuously, build positive interpersonal relationships in the workplace, learn and win in the unpredictable challenges of the work place. Accordingly, today the graduates of Higher Education need to master not only professional skills of their job, but also various soft skills, including the ability to communicate, coordinate, work under pressure, and solve problems. The purpose of this article is to provide literature on the connection of soft skills with employability and world labour market, the role of soft skills in career success for future professionals. The article also examines the definition and selection of the most demanding soft skills from the perspective of different literature. The role of Higher Education in forming and developing soft skills will then be discussed. The article illustrates the results of survey carried out with the aim to analyze the degree of integration of soft skills in Study Skills program that is taught for bachelor students in Uzbek State World Languages University and academic curricula.

Highlights

With the altering educational tendencies, flexibility in educational courses, attainability of masses of qualified personnel, the competition for job acquisition and job sustainability is becoming more and more challenging
In order to get an advantage over the competitors, applicants are left with no choice but to add merits to their hard skills to expand their potential, that are called soft skills
ModEs is a project focusing on the consolidation of a common European program on soft skills across the various academic curricula and the diploma supplement already granted by some higher education institutions

Summary

Introduction

With the altering educational tendencies, flexibility in educational courses, attainability of masses of qualified personnel, the competition for job acquisition and job sustainability is becoming more and more challenging. The universities’ mission of spreading knowledge among the younger generations implies that, in today’s world, they must serve society as a whole; and that the cultural, social and economic future of society requires, in particular, a considerable investment in continuing education This famous statement illustrated in Magna Charta Universitatum, signed in Bologna in 1988, puts forward the idea that Education Institutions don’t have only the responsibility of forming young generations providing them with hard skills to become capable professionals, but must first of all create citizens able to actively and positively participate in society, they have to support them for the development of their soft skills (Morandin, 2015). Foreseeing which skills will be in demand by organizations in years to come is significant in order to provide future workers with the proper competencies

Results and Discussion

Results orientation

Conclusions