This final working paper in The Skills Imperative 2035 project builds on and extends the previous work undertaken, with the focus here being on the supply of skills and looking at the extent to which the skills that individuals possess at the end of education vary according to the pathway they followed through their education system. This paper…

Sustainable Development Goal Target 4.2.1 is monitored by determining the proportion of children aged 24 to 59 months who are developmentally on track in the domains of health, learning, and psychosocial well-being. UNICEF has developed a caregiver report measure, the Early Childhood Development Index 2030 (ECDI2030), to measure progress towards…

This study investigated the contribution of fine and gross motor skills to academic and attentional performance at school entry among 832 boys and girls. Children were tested on their fine and gross motor skills (locomotor, object control) and their academic performance in receptive vocabulary, number knowledge, and attentional skills at 6 to 7…

Adult numeracy is one of the essential skill sets to navigate through numeric information-rich labour markets in general, and STEM industries in particular. Yet, relatively little is known about how numeracy skills are used in different settings in the USA. This study examined numeracy skill use patterns of STEM and non-STEM workers at work and…

One current challenge highlighted by the United Nations is to increase the number of adults who achieve literacy and numeracy by 2030. This article focuses on one experience from an underprivileged Mexican school that implements "Family Education, a Successful Educational Action." Following a communicative methodology, we conducted a…

This essay describes the development of the word numeracy as it evolved from its initial use in 1959 to its current meaning today. Initially appearing in a British report to address mathematics education of teenage boys and girls, it was first used in relation to the word literate and defined as the ability with or knowledge of numbers. By the…

We share our experiences comprehending social theory as it applies to numeracy scholarship. We build on existing arguments that social theory--explicitly acknowledging the presence and influence of histories, power, and purposes--offers something important to scholars who study and discuss numeracy. In this article, we translate the six…

Starting from the preschool period, children need to grow up as individuals with high academic skills, academic enablers and respond positively to their social situations. Academic skills and academic enablers together constitute academic competence. The positive reaction of children to the problems they face constitutes social information…

The linguistic, mathematical, social-emotional, and cognitive precursor competencies are important predictors of learning success already at kindergarten age. A systematic analysis of the state of research on the actual interrelationships of the focused precursor competencies brings together results of a meta-analysis. The literature search…

The purpose of this study is to predict the mathematical literacy levels of the students participating in the research through the data obtained from PISA 2015 exam organized by OECD using data mining and to determine the variables that affect mathematics literacy. For this purpose, students' mathematics literacy levels and the variables that…

There is evidence of a relation between the approximate number system (ANS) and later mathematics achievement. Researchers have proposed various mediators of this relation, including executive functioning (EF), numeral knowledge, and mathematical language. The goal of the present study was to determine which factors mediate the relation between…

The concept of educational recovery is relevant to many systems, both those that experience some form of sudden disruption as well as those that historically have been prone to disruption. Our involvement in developing a curriculum framework for displaced learners in the Learning Passport project (UNICEF, 2020) made us more aware of the field of…

Language and numerical development are associated in early childhood. In the present study, we focused on the association of the development of children's cardinality understanding of small numbers and their knowledge on unspecific quantifiers (i.e., many, a few). In a longitudinal study, we pursued the research question whether children's…

This longitudinal quantitative study determined the impact of a summer mathematics academy for early learners on their number sense and how their number sense compared to that of their peers who did not attend the academy. The Texas Early Mathematics Inventory -- Progress Monitoring (TEMI-PM) was used to measure students' number sense. Results…

The role of executive function skills and motivation in supporting children's academic achievement is well-documented, but the vast majority of evidence is from high-income countries. Classrooms in sub-Saharan Africa tend to be large, teacher-driven, and lecture-focused, which may provide extra challenges for children to stay engaged in the…