Changing Times: Need for Pedagogical Reforms to Foster Life Skills

Abstract

One of the chief aims of education has been to provide the individual with the requisite skill set to analyze and understand their world and negotiate with it. With the advent of modernity, social structures such as family, kinship, and community have undergone unprecedented changes. These social changes, along with the progress in industry and technology, have resulted in a paradigm shift in the economic structures as well, leading to the creation of new set of specialized jobs and occupations that were never there before. In the specific case of India, with its unique and myriad social conditions and historical context, these changes led to the emergence of a new order in terms of required abilities and skills. They not only demanded a different approach but also a nuanced way of negotiation according to context, rather than a generalized one. Thus, the need for a new kind of skill set developed, which was not only necessary for employment but for the purpose of negotiating life. Education has a key role to play in this forever-changing worldview. The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE 2010), states that the development of inner self is the main concern of education which when integrated with the concern to survive in one’s environment guides one towards the necessity to possess the skills required for the same. UNICEF defines these as Life Skills, the abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life. CBSE also suggests that life skills education should be implemented in the formative years of schooling. Life skills development, therefore, requires emphasis as a key area of focus for designing curriculum and pedagogy. In order to suggest new approaches to skill development, which depart from the conventional practices, appropriate design, test, and allied innovation is required. This chapter attempts to explore the necessity for incorporating life skill education in the school system for aligning it with the changing needs of the society and the individual, the issues that the current life skills programmes being run in schools pose, and how pedagogy can pave way for an inclusive model of skill development that can be merged with the prescribed curriculum that is followed in Indian schools at present.