Key skills and curriculum reform

ABSTRACT A number of answers have been offered to the question 'what do we want key skills for?˚s Key skills are supposed to compensate for early specialisation at school, bridge the academic-vocational divide, provide vocational relevance, and cultivate the sort of people employers want to employ. The range of responses, and the seriousness of the issues raised, suggest that more fundamental curriculum reform might be required than the addition of key skills. Two other problems are identified and discussed. First, the demand for key skills can encourage a narrow focus on 'practical˚s outcomes from education which reinforces a long-standing anti-theoretical strain in British culture. Secondly, concepts underpinning key skills have not been properly thought through, particularly in the case of transferability. The argument is that thinking about key skills must be firmly located in discussion of the design and purpose of the curriculum as a whole, and that as much attention should be paid to educational processes as outcomes.