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You are here: Wiki-Summaries >> Common Topics & Terms >> Core Components >> Instruction and Extended Education >> H&LS/PSH Curricula & Instruction
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Health & Life (Living) Skills/Personal, Social & Health Education - Curricula & Instruction
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Health & Life (Living) Skills (H&LS) Curricula and Instruction: This core subject, which is often called "Personal, Social & Health (PSH) education" is taught in most education systems at the primary and junior secondary levels. Students are taught essential knowledge (literacy) needed for their health, safety and security, life or daily living skills needed to manage their lives and relationships and about universal values or attitudes underpinning their ethical/moral and social & emotional development. HLS/PSH curricula are among several subjects that promote health, safety, personal, social and sustainable education and learning as part of the social role of schooling.
(Note: The term 'life skills" is used differently by other sectors. These include "soft skills" needed for employment in the 21st century and "transferable skills" needed for decision-making and interactions with others. Here, we focus on the daily living skills needed for health, safety , family life and relationships. We have also avoided the term well-being because it is often confused with "feeling" well or "doing" well rather than "being" well by learning healthy, safe & respectful skill;s, knowledge & behaviours.) There is a consensus in the research that 50 hours of HLS/PSH instruction can strengthen overall student knowledge, attitudes and skills related to health, safety, personal, social and sustainable development. Many studies have reported changes in knowledge and attitudes on specific health and social topics. There is some evidence that H&LS instruction can create behavioural intentions (personal action plans) which act as as a threshold for behaviour change. However, few programs have reported behavioural change beyond a few months. The curriculum structures (organization of subjects) which deliver classroom H&LS instruction can include these variations: (1) stand-alone “health education” (only on physical and mental health), (2) a stand-alone Life Skills program focused on personal,social & emotional learning/relationships, (3) separate courses on health & life skills (4) a basic “health & life skills (H&LS) education” courses which we define as a focus on a limited number of health & social issues selected by the education authorities, (5) “personal, social and health (PSH)” education which combines life skills and health education organized around generic skills, essential knowledge and universal values, and (6) “personal, social, health and economic (PSHE)” education which combines PSH education with home economics/financial literacy. (7) “physical education and health” which combines physical education (PE) and health, (8) health and career education. There are also stand-alone Physical Education, Home Economics and Moral/Religious Education courses. Informal and non-formal Extended Education (EE) activities are often used to complement and even substitute for formal, classroom-based instruction in HLS/PSH when resources are scarce or when education systems are recovering from conflicts or disasters. Sources:
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This summary was first posted in June 2012. Currently it has been posted as an "excerpt/adaptation", "first draft" or "revised draft" and "first or revised edition" version..We encourage readers to submit comments or suggested edits by posting a comment on the Mini-blog & Discussion Page for this section or posting a comment below: Bibliography/Toolbox on
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