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Life Skill Building: Why is it so Important for Students?
Sharing his thoughts on the topic in his keynote address, Shri Atul Kumar Tiwari, Secretary, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, said, “We must equip our students with the necessary life skills such as effective communication, teamwork, adaptability, decision making, and time management that go beyond the academic education. The employers today are not merely seeking individuals with technical knowledge, rather, they are looking for candidates who have well- rounded skill sets which will enable them to collaborate with their colleagues, communicate ideas clearly and adapt to the demands of a constantly evolving workplace.”
Our National Education 2020 also recognises the importance of skill development, and aims to integrate vocational education with academic education. “It goes beyond the rote learning and traditional methods of teaching. Holistic development can take place only this if the students have a healthy understanding of the skill and vocational education, he added.
There is no denying that the 21 st century essential life skills need to be integrated in the curricular journey of students. However, schools and educational institutions need collaborate with parents and families to reinforce the development of these skills outside of the classroom. “At this point of time, whether it is school, college or university, parental interactions are very minimal, maybe because of the curricular load or because the administrations are occupied with so many activities. The real effort of engaging the parent
community is missing in the complete Indian education system. More and more sensitization workshops are required, where we can give the ownership to the parents, even in the usual business of schooling or college ecosystem,” said one of the panellists Dr. Bishwajeet Saha, Director, Skill Education, CBSE.
Another panellist, Dr. Neharika Vohra, Former VC, Delhi Skill and Entrepreneurship University, shared her thoughts on the potential challenges of that educators face when implementing life skill building initiatives. “Challenges include everything from teacher preparedness, infrastructure in the schools, and also parent involvement. There is a possibility that a parent may not really like some of the things included in skill enhancement courses within the school. We were working with primary schools where we were planning to inculcate life skill education through cleaning classrooms. The parents were very upset with this. So, I think we need education of the parents, the teachers, and of course, the children. So, education of the most important stakeholders and change in the mindset are required,” observed Dr. Vohra.
Incorporating technology and digital literacy into the realm of life skill development is very crucial in the tech-driven era that we live in. Talking about this topic, Shruti Kapoor, Lead, Economic Opportunities, YuWaah (UNICEF), said, “There is no job today that doesn’t require the use of technology. As soon as a person enters into the workforce or even before that, he requires technology to find those right kinds of opportunities, and be able to navigate the right kinds of channels. That digital education has become so important. It’s important that this education is available free of cost. It needs to be incorporated in a manner so that it’s not theoretical, not limited to the basics like Microsoft Word or finance, from where it started. The transition should eventually feed into something that is more valuable and more practical
that helps people navigate their life by themselves. So, it is very important to embed digital
literacy in the education system and not just for technology-based roles.”
Life skill building lies at the heart of pedagogy. Also, it is crucial to integrate the skills in the curriculum. “I think the classroom is a huge laboratory to experiment everything, starting from how we introduce a topic, how we tell children to articulate their questions, how the peer interactions and learning take place, to how we arrive at a solution, project-based learnings, and much more. Also, we need to keep in mind a few foundational principles. One of them is of course the autonomy that we need to give the children,” said Ashok Pandey, Director, Ahlcon Group of Schools. He also highlighted the need to factor in the marginalised children while it comes to pedagogy. “For them, some of these pedagogies may not work due to circumstances or maybe design. But we need to take care of them as well ensuring that their journey from education to employment has little bumps only,” he added. Mr. Pandey believes that the joy of learning and creativity also needs to be kept in mind in this regard. “This is what Rabindranath Tagore and Ken Robinson also said,” he added.
Talking about the importance of life skill development in his special address, Anand Kumar, Padam Shri and Founder of Super 30, said, “Students mostly confine themselves to textbooks only. The world of books is very important. However, functional knowledge, which is way ahead of degrees, is something that we need to pay attention to. Students need to look beyond books and glance at the real world, and interact with people. Everything they do, starting from grocery shopping to buying a ticket, every activity and incident acts as a great teacher.”