Policy options-what governments should do

Recognize and actively advocate for the transformational role of education in realizing human potential and in socio-economic development;

Ensure that curricula and syllabuses address life skills and give learners the opportunity to make real-life applications of knowledge, skills and attitudes;

Show how life skills of all kinds apply in the world of work, for example, negotiating and communication skills, as well practical skills;

Through initial and in-service teacher training, increase the use of active and participatory learning/teaching approaches;

Examine and adapt the processes and content of education so that there is a balance between academic input and life skills development; ,Make sure that education inspectors look not only for academic progress through teaching and learning, but also progress in the communication, modeling and application of life skills;

Advocate for the links between primary and (early) secondary education because learning life skills needs eight or nine years and recognize that the prospect of effective secondary education is an incentive to children, and their parents, to complete primary education successfully.


Policy options-what funding agencies should do

Support research, exchange and debate, nationally and regionally, on ways of strengthening life skills education;

Support innovative (创新的) teacher training in order to combine life skills promotion into subjects across the curriculum and as a fundamental part of what school and education are about;

Recognize the links between primary and secondary education in ensuring that children develop strong life skills;

Support, therefore, the early years of secondary education as part basic education.


What UNESCO is doing

As support to governments and in cooperation with other international agencies, UNESCO:

Works to define life skills better and clarify what it means to teach and learn them;

Assists educational policy makers and teachers to develop and use a life skills approach to education;

Advocates for the links between a life skills approach to education and broader society and human development.