Good news in life skills education

(Baonghean) -Recently, the issue of life skills education has been mentioned a lot in the mass media, it is considered as thinking skills and action skills needed for each person to adapt to life better. In Nghe An, it is very gratifying that from the direction of the Education sector, the awareness of schools about the importance of life skills education has increased significantly.

Life skills can be teamwork skills, independent work, communication skills with people around, even swimming skills to be able to deal with any situation when necessary... Life skills play an important role for everyone. But from reality, it shows that most of the students still lack many necessary life skills, which is expressed in not knowing how to communicate and behave with each other, thus easily causing conflicts. Even for students who are considered good children, good students, but when standing in front of a crowd, they still cannot show their full ability, at least in expression.

Life skills education program at Dang Thai Mai Secondary School.

Therefore, since the beginning of the 2010-2011 school year, the Ministry of Education and Training has issued Official Dispatch No. 453/KH-BGDDT (dated July 30, 2010) on training and implementing life skills education in a number of subjects and educational activities in primary, secondary and high schools nationwide.

Implementing the direction of the Ministry of Education and Training, the Nghe An Department of Education and Training in Official Dispatch No. 2157/SGDĐT-VP on guiding the implementation of the emulation movement "Building friendly schools, active students in the 2010-2011 school year" mentioned the issue of strengthening life skills training for students; in which, clearly stated the requirement to increase resources inside and outside the school for moral education, forming moral standards, paying attention to educating family values, family culture in addition to educating patriotism and national cultural traditions. Training students to be disciplined, agile, neat, tidy, and incorporating life skills education for high school students in a number of subjects and extracurricular activities. For preschool and primary schools, it is necessary to strengthen education on self-service skills, good hygiene habits, self-protection skills, boldness in communication, friendliness with friends, politeness with adults...

The Department of Education and Training also requires its affiliated units to continue to develop and improve cultural codes of conduct in schools, organize counseling, organize cultural clubs, favorite sports and behavioral skills to situations related to social evils for students... From the instructions of the education sector, the awareness of schools about the importance of life skills education has increased significantly. Schools have adopted many forms to bring life skills to students, from integrating them into lessons to organizing extracurricular activities.

Life skills education is essential for adolescents.

According to Ms. Nguyen Thi Phuong (Principal of Le Loi Primary School, Vinh City), the school currently has 950 boarding students, most of whom are at school during the day, so life skills education is always a concern of the school, with the goal of creating good habits for students from the first days of school. In addition to integrating life skills content into subjects, regardless of ethics, math, or Vietnamese, the school also organizes for students to participate in extracurricular activities, creating a feeling of both studying and playing. Even boarding is flexibly integrated into life skills teaching content by the school. For example, during mealtime, students are instructed on personal hygiene methods before eating, cleaning up seats, tables, chairs, bowls and chopsticks, and helping the teacher divide rice. When waking up, they are instructed to neatly arrange blankets and curtains. Knowing how to respect the elderly, greeting guests politely, helping friends in difficult times... These are the basic foundations to guide children to a healthy, cultured lifestyle.

In addition, right in Vinh City, a life skills education center has been established, partly creating diversity in educational methods, and showing the positive interest of the whole society in this issue. Mr. Ho Tien Thuy (Deputy Director of Tam Viet Nghe An organization - specializing in organizing life skills and soft skills education classes for all subjects) said: Lack of necessary life skills will make people prone to deviant behaviors, especially for those in their teens. Realizing that, in recent times, Tam Viet Nghe An has had many exchange activities in coordination with junior high schools and high schools in the area such as Nguyen Trai High School, Nguyen Truong To High School, Hermann Gmeiner High School, Nguyen Hue High School... on teaching life skills to students, and at the same time organizing training for more than 500 union officials at schools on life skills to help them apply them to teaching students in their schools.

For preschool level, it is the skill of bold communication,
friendly with friends...

However, besides the positive signs of bringing life skills into education in general schools, there are still many manifestations showing the passivity of some units in implementing the guidelines, as well as implementing them. Many schools do not understand and do not know how to start teaching life skills to students, while currently there is still no standard curriculum on life skills education. Moreover, some schools and some parents still place too much importance on students' formal study time, setting the top goal for them to pass the university entrance exam, forgetting about life skills education, and considering it not really necessary. This inadvertently makes students become rigid, and very easily led astray by negative influences from the outside environment.

Quang An