Our schools, where a good chunk of that life skills education is meant to happen, might be lagging behind sorely…

“Plenty of information is not education and students are not just a data bank. The main aim of education is to bring out a good human being. It is the need of the hour to inculcate value education, life skills, experiential learning and physical fitness in our daily life.” That was HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar summing up the true aim of education. However, our schools, where a good chunk of that life skills education is meant to happen, might be lagging behind sorely…

The movement has already been kick-started with the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2005 emphasising constructive learning experiences, and on the development of an inquiry-based approach, work-related knowledge and broader life skills. Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), in 2005 had introduced life skills education as an integral part of the curriculum through Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) and developed life skills manuals for teachers based on the 10 core life skills identified by WHO. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) also has life skills training for girls in upper primary classes.

However, while there have been concerted efforts around life skills, curriculum integration and teacher development remain weak areas. As pointed out in the paper Status of Life Skill Education and Its Practices in India by Divya Singh and Dr. Poonam Sharma, many of these efforts take a general approach to ‘life skills information delivery’ (sometimes more as moral/ values education) without a particular context.

In order to be effectively delivered, life skills need to be age-aligned, and inculcated in schools that are inclusive, with trained and motivated teachers who can employ participatory and experiential teaching practices.

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It might seem like too enormous a task… but whoever said skilling children for life was easy!