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What is education if it does not include character building

The only purpose of primary education, or is there a relationship between primary education and character-building?

Bus kay dishware hai her kaam ka assan hona, Admi ko bhe muyasir naheen insan hona (Ghalib)

Behold! Not every task is accomplished with ease, or it would have been possible to evolve a decent man out of every human being. 

What is education? At the primary school level, it can include the following:

● Ability to read and write the eleven crafts of English by the end of class five

● Acquiring six basic competencies of science

● Learning the six social skills.

Without character building, we have a ship without a rudder, a runaway car without a driver.

To develop character, you have to make life skills an essential part of primary school education.

Life skills are those essential abilities that all human beings require to work and prosper. These 35 life skills cover almost all areas of human life. The presence of these skills enables a person to contribute positively to family and society. These skills help us create a balance in our personality and help us handle the challenges of life positively.

Character building

Imagine children who can write a good language, but all they can think of are some self-centered thoughts full of pessimistic feelings, or a child who has the six basic skills of social studies but he or she is emotionally disturbed and can’t make the best use of those skills. Or what would we say of a person who has the six core science competencies but lacks the inner motivation required to put those competencies to good use?

Life skills are divided into four groups:

● Head (skills related to mind or thinking)

● Heart (our emotions/feelings)

● Health

● Hand (actions)

Interestingly with little creative planning, these life skills can easily be incorporated into everyday primary education. All you need to do is look at the lesson you are about to teach and incorporate a life skill that you find relevant to the text of the lesson.

It would be much better if the primary syllabus was designed with life skills in mind. The teacher’s job becomes a lot easier if life skills are integrated right into the text of the syllabus books at appropriate places by the developers of the syllabus.

The challenge of switching from rote memorization to competency-based education that has life skills incorporated into it is great. But the reward is even greater: It enables an ‘Admi’ (average humankind) to change into ‘Insan’ (a successful and balanced personality)!

Butterfly primary syllabus by EAST is the only competency-based syllabus in Pakistan that incorporates life skills.

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8 thoughts on “What is education if it does not include character building”

  1. So the Life Skills, this is best and most innovative thing I’ve seen in the school books in my entire life.. this is an amazing thing that around every chapter we are giving a life skill to our child.. Best work masha Allah 🙂

  2. Masha,Allah an impressive and innovative cooperation not only in education but for everybody to enhance their life skills.

  3. Masha’Allah great insight and timely one too! i am working on same sort of lines with the name of ‘SAVE(Skill and Value base Education). Did a pilot with one of the school system got amazing result and feedback and now we are finalising a deal to do a project ranging from three weeks to one year to imbed the ethoes of SAVE. we are working on a ‘Broken Link’ between BOOK and Real LIFE at school level.

  4. Hi there just wated to give you a brief headss uup
    andd let you knkw a feww oof the images aren’t loading properly.
    I’m not sure why but I think its a linkiong issue.
    I’ve triwd itt iin two different browsxers and
    both show the same outcome.

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