Life skill education aims to provide students with strategies to make healthy choices that contribute to a meaningful life. Life skills are the abilities that help to promote mental well being and competence in young people as they face the realities of life.
It helps the young people to take positive actions to protect themselves and to promote health and meaningful social relationship. Life skill facilitates a complete and integrated development of individuals to function effectively as social beings.
Life skill education is a value addition programme for the youth to understand self and able to assess their skill, abilities and areas of developments, which also enable them to analyse their capacity to enhance the function in a most productive way.
Life skill education allows the youth get along with other people, able to adjust with their environment and making responsible decision which also incorporate to build up their values and to communicate effectively.
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In many circles, reproductive health education, population education and family welfare education are interchangeably used to convey the same meaning. The main objective of life skill education is to enable the learner to develop a concept of oneself as a person of worth and dignity. It should help one to understand oneself and lead to growth in personal responsibility.
Life skill education is a basic learning need for all young people. It will help the young people to empower in challenging situations. Various skills like leadership, responsibility, communication, intellectual capacity, self esteem, Interpersonal skill etc., extend its maximum level, if it is practicing effectively among the youth.
We need to create life skill education as the cornerstone of various youth programmes. An effective implementation strategy will help the youth to practice it in their life. Specific activities like leadership training, communication, interaction, understanding self, making decisions, working with groups, socialization etc added the quality of youth.
Developing life skill helps the adolescents to translate knowledge, attitude and their health behaviour such as acquiring the ability to reduce specific risk behaviour and adopt healthy behaviour that improve their lives in general.
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Life skills have produced the following effects: lessened violent behaviour; increased pro-social behaviour and decreased negative, self-destructive behaviour; increased the ability to plan ahead and choose effective solutions to problems; improved self- image, self-awareness, social and emotional adjustment; increased acquisition of knowledge; improved classroom behaviour; gains in self control and sociability; better handling of interpersonal problems and coping with anxiety; and improved constructive conflict resolution with peers, impulse control and popularity.
Skill based approach in life skill education follows well established mentoring techniques to develop students innate quality and also motivating them to adopt socially acceptable pattern of lifestyle’s particularly, strategy consisting of a group of people combined together to help themselves by identifying their talents and directing them to choose an appropriate steps to enhance their skill and abilities as a part of development.
Proper feedbacks are necessary from the trainer as well as the peer groups to an individual to improve their confidence. Through the experiential learning process, youth internalize the knowledge and gain the ability to apply the skills appropriately.