Noncogs is short for non-cognitive skills, and I've just been at an OECD meeting where my former colleague Koji Miyamoto is preparing for some longitudinal studies to  measure these in several different countries.  Noncogs are, obviously, distinguished from cognitive skills, both general ones such as reasoning and analytical skills and specific ones such as subject-related skills (mathematical, linguistic etc).  Noncogs include the capacity to concentrate on medium- or long-term goals, perseverance, the ability to deal with setbacks and the capacity to interact well with others. There is increasing evidence that in many contexts noncogs are as important as cogs, if not more so.  (We should always remember that the two categories are not watertight, and interact…