“The subject of socio-behavioral skills is too important to be left to economists alone”

SAccording to a note published Thursday, September 29 by the Economic Analysis Council (CAE) and entitled Focus on human capital to reconnect with productivity growth »productivity growth is slowing faster in France than in Germany and the United States: which would constitute a “macroeconomic challenge of around 140 billion euros of GDP”.

Among the multiple causes of this dropout, the authors point to the lack of socio-behavioural skills (soft skills)). They point out that France’s performance is disappointing in the following dimensions: instruction, coordination, social perception, negotiation, complex problem solving, judgment and decision-making, and resource management.

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They therefore recommend “set medium and long-term objectives with a system of regular assessment of socio-behavioral skills for students nationwide”. It’s about “to introduce standardized tests, just as there are annual assessments in mathematics and French carried out at the start of primary and secondary school” for “to be able to systematically monitor the state and evolution of socio-behavioural skills in schools”.

The three false roads of the Economic Analysis Council

Thus, for “to structure ambitious public policies with objectives on the improvement of soft skillsevaluation procedures should be extended to all schools, include other personality traits, and be carried out on a regular basis”. It seems to me that the Economic Analysis Council is on the wrong track for at least three reasons.

First of all, comparing socio-behavioral skills to math and French skills is heresy. Socio-behavioral competence is based on a strong indetermination linked to life itself, which judgment tries to overcome, whereas competences in mathematics and French are at least largely limited by objective rules.

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As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) teaches us in Philosophical research (published in 1953), when it comes to judging, “what we learn is not a technique; one learns correct judgments. There are also rules, but they do not form a system, and only experienced people can apply them correctly. Unlike calculation rules. What is most difficult here is to express the indeterminacy correctly and without falsifying it”. It is therefore illusory to rely on references of socio-behavioral skills.

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