Role of Life Skills Education in Empowering Secondary School Students: An Explanatory Study

Abstract

Life skills Education enables secondary students to understand critical situations intelligently and wisely and behave in a logical way to solve life-related problems (Mulyadi, Suryadi, & Aliyyah, 2020; Life Skills-Based Education, 2014). The study intended to investigate the extent to which secondary school students possess life skills and explore gender-wise (male/female) and school-wise (public/private) differences among secondary school students about life skills development. The study was quantitative following the explanatory research method. A total of 220 secondary school students were selected as a sample for the study using a proportionate sampling technique. To collect data a structured questionnaire was employed. The data analysis illustrated the positive perception of most of the participants (male/female) about having essential life skills. However, a significant difference was observed between the perception of female and male students regarding life skills development among them. This was also concluded that students of private schools have a strong perception about possessing essential life skills as compared to the students of public schools. So, it is recommended to arrange equal learning opportunities for both male/female students in private/public schools to promote essential life skills among young students.