Pratham Life Skills Framework

Pratham's Life Skills Framework is a set of psychosocial abilities for adaptive and positive behaviors developed by Pratham Education Foundation, an NGO implementing high-quality, low-cost, and replicable interventions that address gaps in India's education system, especially among underprivileged youth and children. The framework focuses on the knowledge, skills, and attitudes required to address socioeconomic and gender challenges and enable children to deal effectively with the demands and obstacles of everyday life, and is used to guide programming for two of Pratham's life skills programs: Second Chances, which serves girls and women who have dropped out of school, and the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalay Program, which serves girls in grades 6-8 in government-run residential schools across three Indian states.

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Pratham Life Skills…self awarenessself managementinterpersonal skillsproblem solvingleadershiptechnical skills

Breakdown by Domain


Domain Key

Cognitive
Emotion
Social
Values
Perspectives
Identity
7%
13%
20%
53%
7%

Key Features


Context & Culture

  • The framework is intended as an overall map of the life skills that promote mental wellbeing and positive life outcomes to be developed within the program, but they are intended to be flexible such that the associated curriculum can be aligned to the needs of the target group (including children from diverse financial and academic backgrounds)
  • Designed to guide life skills programming for girls as part of a larger program that seeks to address gender-oriented social and cultural constraints by increasing girls' educational access and achievement
  • Recommends mobilization and engagement of communities and government to address problems in education

Developmental Perspective

  • Notes that the way in which young people develop and deploy the six components and competencies outlined in the framework are interrelated, with leadership being a composite component that builds heavily on the skills that fall within other components
  • No learning progression provided

Associated Outcomes

  • Notes the general importance of life skills to mental wellbeing and positive life outcomes related to health and productivity

Available Resources


Support Materials

  • Offers program overviews that summarize general program and framework information

Programs & Strategies

  • The framework is designed to guide life skills programming in two Pratham programs: the Second Chance Program for girls and women who have dropped out of school and the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalay Program for girls in upper primary grades at government-run residential schools
  • Curriculum resources include trainer manuals, course objectives, activities, and timelines; sample life skills assessments; and sample lesson plans that describe learning outcomes, competencies, materials, and procedures

Measurement Tools

  • Pratham has developed multiple assessment tools to measure program progress and the impact of their life skills programming; however, the assessments are not specifically designed to measure skills in the framework

Key Publications

  • Pratham. (2018). The Second Chance Program: Overview of the Program and Course Modules (Part I).New Delhi: Pratham Education Foundation.
  • Pratham. (2018). The Second Chance Program: Overview of the Program and Course Modules (Part II). New Delhi: Pratham Education Foundation.
  • Date, M., Ghosalkar, S., & Mehmood, U. (2018).Trainer Manual. New Delhi: Pratham Education Foundation.
  • Pratham Education Foundation website: http://www.pratham.org/

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