Enhancing Life Skills Among Secondary School Students in Kerala: Need of Integrating Environmental and Climate Change Perspectives

It is imperative that life skills instruction be combined with environmental and climate change knowledge for a promising future. As future citizens and decision-makers, secondary school students need a wide range of skills in addition to academic knowledge to successfully navigate, adapt and respond to environmental concerns, which is an imminent issue today. Teachers can cultivate a generation that is both empowered and environmentally conscious by providing students with pertinent life skills and climate awareness. In general, life skills are defined as the capacity for good and adaptable behaviour that is essential for managing the rigors and difficulties of daily life which include communication, interpersonal, problemsolving, critical thinking and decision-making. Students’ awareness of their individual responsibilities to the environment and their readiness to tackle environmental issues can both be improved by incorporating environmental and climatic perspectives into life skills instruction. In Kerala, where the region’s delicate ecosystems are greatly impacted by both anthropogenic activity and climatic fluctuation, this integration is especially important. In this context, it becomes critical to have an informed youth population that can act in an environmentally responsible manner. Sustainable habits and a closer bond with nature can be fostered via a curriculum that integrates environmental awareness with life skills. Thus, the paper is an attempt to study the pressing need to embed environmental and climate-related perspectives within the life skills curriculum for secondary school students in Kerala. It should be noted that by promoting a generation that is more conscious, accountable and equipped to handle environmental issues, improving life skills instruction with environmental and climate change views can greatly benefit Kerala’s secondary school students. This method prepares students to live balanced, environmentally conscious lives and is in tune with the larger objectives of sustainable development. Thus, by addressing the intersections of life skills and environmental education, the paper contributes to the discourse on developing education systems that equip school students for the demands of the 21st century, where climate resilience and environmental stewardship are crucial to personal and societal well-being.