Local Life Skills Education (LLSE) Project

Project Update

 

UNICEF supports MoEYS to implement a local life skills education program (LLSE) to develop soft skills as outlined in the school syllabi for Grades 4-6 (primary school) and for Grades 7-9 (secondary school). LLSE provides opportunities for students to apply what they have learned from all subjects and other diverse sources of information (including online learning) to their daily life practice through an active and participatory 6-step problem-based learning process.

 

In August 2023, KAPE was contracted by UNICEF as a consulting agency to support the MoEYS in harmonizing local life skills education programs with support from different NGOs/donors and thereby, facilitating a nationwide scale-up of the LLSE program to be led by an MoEYS working group. As part of its Technical Assistance (TA), KAPE is responsible for several tasks under this assignment including (1) Development and administration of a life skills baseline assessment that will compare 3 kinds of schools (LLSE schools, New Generation Schools, and Control Schools); (2) Development of a Life Skills Training Manual that focuses on problem-based learning; (3) Development of a reference document that summarizes useful resources for teaching life skills; and (4) Development of a road map document that helps MoEYS and UNICEF plan out an expansion of LLSE activities to more schools in more provinces.

 

Goal

 

The purpose of this assignment is to support the MoEYS Life Skills Working Group to gradually expand LLSE implementation in new districts and provinces. The assignment will be organized around the following 3 core tasks:

• Conduct an assessment that will establish a baseline of students’ soft skill level while at the same time identifying current challenges in implementation as well as factors that facilitate successful implementation at school level. The assessment will include the identification of multiple comparative groupings including treatment schools (both current and proposed), control schools, and New Generation Schools (NGS) as an additional model for comparison.
• Develop a training manual on LLSE implementation that integrates the assessment results and MoEYS working group suggestions, together with the organization of additional resource materials on prioritized topics (e.g., climate change, gender equity, mental health, etc.).
• Develop guidelines for program expansion, proposing a suitable approach using district and province-wide implementation with indicative costing (considering training one school director and two teachers from each school) introduced by UNICEF, including details on the M&E procedures to be applied.

 

Project Target

 

• Provinces Covered: 8 Provinces
• Districts Covered: 22 districts
• Target Primary Schools: 34 schools (Baseline Testing only)
• Target Secondary Schools: 28 schools (Baseline Testing only)

 

Key Activities

Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS)

 

• Ensure smooth coordination between all concerned departments and stakeholders in scaling up LLSE training and implementation nationwide.
• Design a training manual to reinforce teachers’ professional development in reference to teaching methodology and 21st century skills development.
• Strengthen good governance in schools as a precondition for effective LLSE implementation.
• Support teachers to become “life skills teachers” who promote opportunities for students to apply their learning from all subjects in their daily life.
• Optimize the use of existing LLSE resources and make such resources available for schools (i.e., through DIT e-learning platform)
• Identify mechanisms to support teachers after training (e.g., school-based mentoring). Use existing government structures in channeling such support.
• Include ICT-related factors in the training manual to promote digital education in schools and ICT integration in the teaching and learning of LLSE.
• Revise existing assessment practices on soft skills development (e.g., formative assessment) and consider introducing competency-based student assessment.
• Help to integrate the key features of project work in the 6-step LLSE process.

 

Schools

 

• Support effective implementation of LLSE linked with good governance and strong leadership.
• Reinforce teachers’ understanding of soft skills.
• Identify additional resources to support the implementation of LLSE for some topics (e.g., Climate Change).
• Identify the basic resources schools may lack for LLSE implementation (e.g., LCDs, computers are not available).
• Survey the lack of teachers as a constraint of LLSE implementation (especially at lower secondary level).
• Highlight the importance of involving all stakeholders in LLSE implementation, including students and community.
• Highlight how schools can promote behavior change in the community through LLSE implementation.
• Highlight that LLSE improves school-community relationships.
• Advocate with local authorities (commune, district, and province) to take further actions to support local life skills implementation and solve current challenges.

 

Start and End Date

 

August 2023 - February 2024

 

Funded by