Italy seems unable to recover the historic gap compared to European education standards; the delay is relevant especially for the tertiary cycle, and it might worsen our system weakness in a strong innovation phase, marked by the rising convergence of all activities in a global digital ecosystem, by the radical transformation of work towards flexibility, and by the 'Creative Industry' and '4.0 Industry' emergence. The dropout in the first years of university paths - added to the other dropout components - is partly resulting from the lack in basic skills. It is therefore necessary to realign education objectives and methods to the EU trends and aims i.e. redesigning learning activities within the school-network hybridization processes and placing the 'transversal' skills gradual training as a central issue. This article examines the main guidelines the international observatories and agencies are currently developing with respect to three competence areas: MILs skills, cognitive skills and soft skills.