The challenges in implementing life skills education in Male' schools / Hidaya Mohamed Zahir

Abstract

The aim of Life Skills Education (LSE) is to empower the students with the knowledge and skills required to enable them to deal with the demands and challenges of everyday life. In Maldives, LSE programs are conducted as an extracurricular activity. As a results their impacts are felt less on the teaching and learning process and on the students' personality. In addition, LSE is a new concept in the Maldivian context. After 2008, due to numerous reasons, LSE programmes conducted in Male' schools have failed to produce results expected from these trainings.
Therefore, it is essential to identify the factors that hinder Life Skills Educations Programs in the Primary and Secondary Schools in Male'. The objectives of this research are to identify the factors that impede LSE implementation by analyzing teachers' attitude, Life Skills teaching pedagogies, training of LSE teachers and teachers' motivation.
A cross sectional survey design was employed in this study. The population comprised of two schools where Life Skills Education has been taught since 2004. Attitude of teachers and their motivation were taken as two key factors which have direct impact on the implementation of Life Skills Education. At the same time, training of Life Skills teachers' and Life Skills teaching pedagogies that directly influence the implementation of Life Skills Education were also explored. All the relationships tested were significant and positive with substantial to strong relationship manifested between all the four factors.