New Literacies Needed?

Increasingly, many Western societies face a ‘double whammy’: simultaneous high levels of youth unemployment and skills shortages. But it is not just formal and traditional skills that are needed; ‘new literacies’ from the digital to real world, verbal to visual, scientific and financial are being highlighted as critical to our futures. New literacies could be seen as little more than rebranding of old ideas, but in doing so it may focus attention and garner momentum for change and new solutions for our new economies.