Abstract
There is a rapidly developing trend of anxiety and depressive disorders; the level of prevalence of such disorders is at 34% in urban Pakistan. We have analyzed that educational institutions can play a vital role in providing preventive tools that will facilitate in coping with diverse situations that pose challenges leading to disorders. Our study is an attempt to investigate the impact of structured, taught and activity based curriculum for life skills with focus on self-esteem and thinking skills. Out of total population of 3000 students, 220 students of Grade 1 (age 6-7 years) participated in the study. Five sample sets were taken, with equal gender ratio. Experimental design was pre tests, followed by 30-week intervention and post tests in order to measure the changes in the self-esteem and thinking skills of early school children. The instruments used were Rosenberg Self-Esteem Test, Drawing Test and Conservation Test. T-Test and ANOVA were used to evaluate the significance of impact of intervention. Results revealed that:(a) structured intervention enhances thinking skills (40.2%) and self-esteem (31.6%); (b) improvement level is not directly correlated with the base level skill; (c) while prolonged intervention is expected to lead to a continuous improvement, the skill development over time is not likely to be linear. Based on our findings, it is recommended that such research can be used to form the basis of prescriptive policy and law making for changing the early education curriculum to include mandatory life skills education as one preventive intervention against avoidable mental disorders
Author Information
Hassan Sattar, Silver Oaks School, Pakistan
Sadaf Nazir, Silver Oaks School, Pakistan
Paper Information
Conference: ACE2014
Stream: Challenges and transformation in times of change
This paper is part of the ACE2014 Conference Proceedings (View)
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