Comprehensive Life Skills Framework for Sierra Leone
Building a brighter future through essential skills for life and livelihoods
Highlights
Sierra Leone commits to reinventing education to nurture the skills for children and young people so that they are empowered and become responsible citizens. This represents the country’s endeavor towards the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 4 which ensures inclusive and equitable quality education and promotes lifelong learning opportunities for all.
Relying on life skills is effective in developing a strong personal sense of self, cultivating a growth mindset and building resilience to deal with personal, social and even national vulnerabilities. It is also considered an effective tool in educating children and young people about health, social and economic issues and to assist them to develop a sense of self, increase their self-esteem, cultivate a growth mindset, and empower them. Empowered adolescents are able to recognize their inherent worth, and the fundamental equality of men and women, boys and girls and can critically examine their lives and the inequities in their societies. They are able to participate civically and make personal and public choices to act for the improvement of their lives and their world.
With keen recognition on the importance of life skills for all children, the MBSSE has led the development of a Comprehensive Life skills framework for Sierra Leone that informs a common definition of life skills to be referenced across all development sectors. This initiative seeks to reformulate traditional understandings of life skills education in Sierra Leone while recalling fundamental questions about the purpose and role of education in societal development that are relevant to the current context. It builds a conceptual framework for life skills that embed a set of skills clusters that are most relevant in the context of Sierra Leone. It further affirms the importance of operationalizing life skill development as part of a continuum approach since life skills are lifelong and must be developed early and implemented through all stages of life. Further, the framework demands the adoption of an integrated and holistic approach to education and attempts to fulfilling education’s role to enhance personal development and social cohesion. A step in this direction is to integrate the identified skills in subjects and curriculum at all stages and levels of education.
The framework has a potential to guide a coordinated approach by all partners, across all sectors, working on building life skills in children in schools or in communities.
This work is a product of extensive participation and teamwork, for which I express my sincere gratitude to all the stakeholders who have broken the barriers of siloed efforts and brought this framework to life.
