Noncognitive skills gained by Escuela Nueva primary schools in Colombia

Good education is invaluable, particularly given the context of a changing world in which new skills and knowledge are required. This means that abilities beyond cognitive skills are necessary, with noncognitive skills such as global understanding, citizenship, democratic behaviour, self-esteem, initiative, critical thinking and problem solving proving incredibly important. Associate Professor Takako Suzuki, Graduate School of Human-Environment Studies, Kyushu University, Japan, is working to understand the effects of measures implemented by Escuela Nueva, including how autonomous learning developed. Between 2013 and 2019 she undertook a project centered on Escuela Nueva primary schools in Colombia. This was a longitudinal study that chartered the progress of primary school graduates. A set of questionnaires was completed by around 1,000 secondary students in rural Colombia who had just graduated from primary schools in 2014, and repeated again by the same students in 2017 when they reached the final grade of secondary schools. The two sets of questionnaires were then compared and analysed and Suzuki found that the positive impacts of fresh primary graduates had been lost during the four years of conventional secondary education, which led her to recommend that the Government extend Escuela Nueva models to secondary education or to introduce a less conventional approach to secondary education. Suzuki and the team succeeded in proving the effects of school outputs based on the immediate acquisition of noncognitive abilities after graduating from Escuela Nueva primary schools. She hopes her findings will help to improve basic education, as well as helping to develop human resources for the 21st century.