This article traces the reframing of the relationship between knowledge, skills and competencies in New Zealand education policy from the 1990s onwards. It argues that this reframing is the result of New Zealand's recontextualisation of global policy ideas about the kind of education thought to be needed in the twenty-first century, and in particular, for the development of a successful knowledge economy. The discussion focuses on two of the contemporary constituents of the cluster of ideas that constitute twenty-first century: ICT/digital technologies and the kind of knowledge needed for the twenty-first century. Both of these constituents of twenty-first century learning are strongly linked to ideas about the development of a successful knowledge economy. It is argued that each of these constituents, both separately, and when employed as part of a whole approach to teaching and learning, have contributed to the emergence of a different kind of relationship between knowledge, skills and competencies, in which skills and competencies are increasingly emphasised.