Certificate Course in Life Skills Education

Certificate Course in Life Skills Education

The centre has been conceived as an attempt to stimulate and discover through experience, the perspectives in education so that individuals and institutions reflect, rediscover themselves and move towards progress in the educational complexities of the 21st century.

Objectives:To enhance the quality of educational system through the inculcation of creativity in educational methods and to contribute towards change and development in education

Introduction to Life Skills
An important question in the education sector is – Education for what?
Schools often do not attend to children’s world of feelings, ideas and moral dilemmas. The result is that children do have the necessary skills to transact day to day realities in an effective way. Other contemporary concerns include Sexuality, Abuse, HIV – AIDS, Risk Behaviours, Behavior choices, Gender, conflict-Resolution, Aggression, etc. Where education does not provide the basis for understanding these, children may not have the skills to make healthy choices and decisions.
Life skills are abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of every day life.
The core set of skills are expected to help a person negotiate through the complex social situation and inter-personal interactions. It is also expected to help a person in resolving conflicts, combat abusive situations, identify emotional complexities, and refuse to participate in high risk behaviour, build / improve social constructs of knowledge and negotiate / transact activities of daily life.

Course objectives:

To familiarize teachers/childcare functionaries lectures with the concept of life skills and equip them with the skills to implement a programme in schools/ out of school children/ colleges

Course Design / Content

The course has been designed by Dr.Shekhar Seshadri, Dept. of Psychiatry, NIMHANS, Bangalore and Dr. Shashi Kiran, Consultant Psychiatrist, United Kingdom, on the basis of their field experience with children and teachers. It covers the theoretical basis, objective and methods of life skills education. It will train in activities that support such a program. It will also focus on how to design and evaluate a life skills education programme

Duration: 5 days (3 + 2)
Level I (Basic level)
* Experiential methodologies and methods of facilitation, including theatre in education, films, art and use of narratives. Review of manuals and existing programmes.
* Presentation and discussion on experiences of the participants and further exploration of methodology.
* Protocols on programme development
* Presentation and discussion on trends, experiences in the implementation of the programme
* Methods of process evaluation and impact assessment.

Each workshop would also contain sessions of 60-80 minutes which can be replicated/ reconstructed in a classroom setting. The workshop would focus on listing and building of Macro and Micro Skills. It would also focus on the general and personal location of the teacher on these issues and the conviction with which these are held, the emotions it raises and the action taken.

Level II (Advanced level):
Days 4 & 5 : It is mandatory to do level I training to enroll for Level II. The Level II will be held after two months depending on the consensus of participants of Level I.

Level I has a stand alone structure and will suffice for people who wish to use these skills for class room praxis. Level II is meant for those who desire advanced inputs into methodology and are keen on large issues of programme development, scaling up processes and so on.

Eligibility : Teachers, Lecturers, Functionaries of child care Institutions, people who work with children and youth.

Evaluation : Participants would be required to submit process reports on Pilot experiences, program development, and Trend analysis.
Periodic feedback and evaluation forms are also a mandatory part of the evaluation. Assignments / course work will need to be compulsorily covered before commencement of the Advanced Level of the programme.