Teaching project management to primary school children: Exploring the perspectives of project practitioners

Abstract

Project management knowledge and skills are an important component of the Australian Curriculum. The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority calls for the explicit teaching of project management in primary school. However, it is uncertain if teachers possess the knowledge required to provide explicit teaching of project management, and to what extent it is being taught in primary school. To support the efforts of educators, seventeen project management experts were recruited to provide their perspectives. The Delphi method was used for consensus-building and the identification of core project management hard and soft skills. The findings revealed ten hard skills and twenty soft skills, ranked in order of importance and difficulty level, that children require to successfully manage projects. This study has significance for the project management profession by including the perspectives of industry practitioners on the skills required to successfully manage projects. It also provides educators with an evidence-based perspective for the design and delivery of project management content.