Instilling life skills in learners is key
Primary Seven candidates of Budo Junior School write their Mathematics exam on November 5, 2018. PHOTO/FILE
What you need to know:
The issue: Life skills
Our view: The easiest place to start is by asking oneself, whether the young people in your care have any of the aforementioned skills. If not, what are you doing to change that status quo? The miserable two percent statistic by Assessment of Life Skills and Values should be motivation enough to be a change agent and empower our young people
According to a study by Assessment of Life Skills and Values, an initiative of the Regional Education Learning Initiative, which examined the ability of adolescents to solve life challenges and self-awareness, only two percent of Ugandan adolescents have the ability to solve daily life problems.
The study, targeted 11,074 adolescents aged between 13 and 17 years, from 7,815 households across 400 enumeration areas in 20 districts.
Speaking at the launch, the director of National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC), Mr Grace Baguma, said the national curriculum must emphasise development of life skills and values to support early childhood development.
Dr Mary Goreti Nakabugo, the executive director of UWEZO also pointed to the importance of equipping all children with life skills and values to enable them identify multiple approaches to solving problems. (See “We should refocus curriculum to life skills – NCDC” Daily Monitor December 15, 2022)
These absurd statistics point to a lack of holistic education for learners and an urgent need to revise the curriculum as has been pointed out by Dr Baguma and many before her. While the current curriculum is good, there are gaps that need to be filled as can be seen from the results of the herein mentioned study.
There is need to inculcate hard and soft life skills which will go a long way in improving the quality of graduates that are churned out of the education system every year. Graduates who don’t only regurgitate the book knowledge they cram in theory lessons/ lectures at school or university but who can also apply the said knowledge to be able to add value to society or solve problems. The basic desired life skills in this case include critical thinking, self-awareness, decision making, resilience, communication to mention but a few.
With the absence of such skills, it is no wonder then that many learners graduate from school with flying colours but have to be retrained by employers to be relevant to the job market.
It goes without saying that this task to arm learners with more than book knowledge should not be left to schools alone. Parents and guardians play an equally important role in inculcating these values.
The easiest place to start is by asking oneself, do the young people in your care have any of the aforementioned skills? If not, what are you doing to change that status quo? The miserable two percent statistic by Assessment of Life Skills and Values should be motivation enough to be a change agent and empower our young people.
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