Beyond Elementary

Life Skills refer to a large group of psychosocial and interpersonal skills that promote mental wellbeing that leads to a healthy and productive life. Life Skills are important as they enable individuals, including children and young people, to manage their lives well and stay confident and positive while serving as valuable resources to their friends, families and community.

Pratham’s Life Skills Program started in 2012-13 with its school-based interventions with adolescents and has since expanded across various program areas including Second Chance.

At Pratham, Life Skills activities are offered in addition to the academic subjects like Language, Mathematics, English, etc. It is implemented as a separate module or integrated into teaching of academic subjects or both. There is a curriculum for Life Skills based on our Life Skills Framework. Sessions are designed to cover various competencies included in the framework.

The six main components of Pratham’s Life Skills Framework are as follows:

• Self-Awareness
• Self-Management
• Interpersonal Skills
• Problem Solving
• Leadership
• Technical Skills

The framework works as an overall map of life skills; depending on the needs of the target group the module can evolve. The components are interrelated and operate simultaneously. ‘Leadership’ is a composite component and derives heavily from the other components. The last component ‘Technical Skills’ is closely linked with ‘Functional Literacy’.

Pratham’s Life Skills framework has been acknowledged by various National and International bodies and has been also published on the website of Harvard Graduate School. For more information, click http://exploresel.gse.harvard.edu/

The Life Skills module has two components: Classroom Sessions and Community Project. A variety of methods such as group discussions, reflective activities, games, presentations, role-plays and field visits are used. The Community Project is a ‘Problem Solving Group Challenge’, in which the students try to solve a problem in their community by applying skills such as communication, team-work, critical thinking, creative thinking, problem solving and more.

The classes are conducted by Pratham Staff who are mostly local youth. They are trained by the National and/or State Resource group for Life Skills. The training typically consists of the following:

• Effective delivery of life skills sessions
• Effective teaching and training skills
• Skills for first-aid counseling

Presently, the Life Skills module is offered in two programs:

1. Second Chance Program: Through this program, Pratham helps students, mostly girls and women, who had to drop out of school to complete Grade 10. This program is offered in nine states namely; Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The classes are conducted in Pratham-run community centres. Through the Second Chance Program, Life Skills is offered to 4000 girls, women and boys at some places in a year.
2. KGBV Program: In this program, Pratham collaborates with Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas to work with girls from grades 6-8. The program focuses on helping girls develop foundational skills and life skills; and transition to grade 10. This school based program is currently operational in three states; Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand and reaches out to 6000 students annually.

Over the years, various assessment tools have been used for measuring Life Skills. These include written tests, self-assessments, and observation tools among others. The primary purpose of these assessments has been to track the changes in students’, work on other variables such as teacher behaviours and teaching-learning processes, and also help course corrections.

In the last 5 years or more, Life Skills intervention reached more than 52,000 students across 16 states. In 2020-21, approximately 4,000 girls from KGBVs and about 3,500 students from the Second Chance Program were part of the Life Skills interventions.