Why Are Life Skills Important?

Life skills education is utmost necessary for the young generation. 

Why Are Life Skills Important? 

"So I see my purpose in life, my mission in my work, is to reduce suffering, specifically of students so that they can be more engaged in their academic work, in their lives, and to thrive and flourish."                                                                                                                                                                   - Nic Voge

I vividly remember watching a Ted Talk by Nic Voge, Senior Associate Director of Princeton University’s McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning, and these words absolutely resonated with him. Since the pandemic started in 2019, he has been doing exactly the same thing “Reduce Suffering”, “Reduce Life Skills Gap”, and “Reduce Learning Loss” in his own unique ways.

As a life skills educator, I teach life skills like leadership and teamwork, ability to communicate and collaborate and so on. With my decade long experience of dealing with the youth from India and abroad, I strongly believe that life skills education is utmost necessary for the young generation. 

The strangest part is that though life skills permeate every area and aspect of life, still not taught in all schools and colleges. According to National Center for Education Statistics report, many employers are finding that recent graduates are unprepared to succeed in the workforce because they lack foundational soft skills (= life skills). As per UNICEF, investing in the world’s 1.2 billion adolescents aged 10-19 could break entrenched cycles of unemployment and inequity.

India is home to more than 253 million adolescents. Caste, gender, poverty and location continue to pose barriers for many young people to realize their full potential. There is an increasingly stronger focus on developing comprehensive life skills in children and young people in India and across the world so that they become empowered and responsible citizens of the society.

Life skills are necessary in helping children and young people feel a deep sense of empowerment. The empowered individuals are able to recognize their own identity and worth, that of others, and bring together a group’s strengths to contribute to the personal and social transformation. Research indicates a positive correlation between life skills and increased attendance levels, enhanced classroom behaviour and improved academic achievement. Given the positive correlation between life skills and learning outcomes, the role of life skills education within school curriculum and in the community becomes very important.

According to HBR (Harvard Business Review), “Many students are currently being prepared for jobs that no longer exist, and many don’t have the right skills for the job they want. This becomes even more problematic as more and more of our work tasks are automated. But it also means that they’ll need to be better prepared for what lies ahead: more and more employers are going to require exceptional power skills (life skills) — the ability to listen, and communicate effectively.”

There is no doubt that life skills are essential skills for our young generation and I realized it quite early in my career. Since the beginning, I have been advocating quite strongly about life skills education. In other words, education without skills like communication, leadership, problem solving, creativity etc. is incomplete.

2021 Job Outlook report shows that nearly all employers consider life skills (like leadership, communication etc.) to be key skills for recent college grads entering the workforce. Students can stand out and prepare for a successful transition to the workforce if we provide them resources to help boost their proficiency in life skills.

During my decade long experience of imparting life skills education, I have seen a tremendous shift in learners’ knowledge, skills, and attitude post their participation in life skills courses. Having witnessed such positive change in hundreds and hundreds of learners, I do aspire to develop an innovative platform that could equip the students (from all around the world) with such crucial life skills.