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chools need to better equip students with learning and life skills to prepare them for a rapidly changing world, a forum called Jakarta Teachers Club concluded at a recent discussion.

"An up-to-date school is a school *that teaches material* relevant to current conditions," Romy Cahyadi, an education consultant, said.

More than a hundred school officials and principals, from kindergartens to high schools, gathered last week at the Atma Jaya Catholic University to discuss what schools needed to do to achieve success.

With the changes in information and technology, what people learned this year could be ob-solete within the next three years, said Romy, the director of Education Provisi, an education consultancy.

Learning and life skills, he said, would prepare students to quickly adapt to changes they would face, including global warming and economic crisis.

"We often give students case examples of problems and teach them how to solve them at school.

"But what happens in the real work is so unpredictable and demands problem-solving skills," Romy said.

According to www.21centuryskills.org, learning skills include leadership, critical thinking, problem solving, creativity and communication, while life skills include self direction, flexibility, social and cross-cultural skills, productivity, as well as leadership.

Teachers in Jakarta could teach students skills through a group project on how to solve the city's flood problems, Romy said.

"They could gather information and make presentations," he suggested, adding that the project would sharpen students' problem-solving skills, analytical thinking, creativity and cooperation.

Teachers would need to explain the assessment criteria in the required skill areas, and make room for evaluations in students' academic reports.

Another speaker, Urbanus M. Nangoy, a human resources development manager, said students should be taught values they needed to excel in the workplace.

"Students' ways of thinking are important. They should be taught that there are no short cuts and that what really counts is their discipline and hard work," Urbanus said.

Training in problem solving and decision making will always attract employers because many workers lack such skills, he said.

Gatot Widodo, the deputy principal of SMK Angkasa 1 vocational school in East Jakarta, said teac-hers and students were too preoccupied with government targets in the national examinations and paid too little attention to skills development.

"Whether it's a regular school or a school of excellence, they all concentrate on how to pass the exams," he said.

"Many schools are focused on reaching accreditation standards set by the education agency *rather than on the development of students*," he said.