Revisiting Key Skills: A Practical Framework for Higher Education

This paper proposes a practical framework for key skills that can be used or adapted for use in any discipline at university level. The paper begins by reviewing the arguments for and against integrating key skills into higher education. Although the skills agenda has been widely criticised on several fronts, this paper argues that key skills need not threaten the notion of a liberal education. Rather, it argues that revisiting the issue of key skills in university curricula can enhance content learning by promoting experiential and active learning innovations. Finally, it examines some of the issues relating to implementation of such a framework.