The development of life skills has been increasingly recognised in formal and non-formal education programmes as critical to enabling young people to flourish. Recent competency-based curricular reform reflects a growing consensus on the importance of developing a combination of socio-emotional, cognitive and practical skills to overcome contemporary social, environmental, and economic global challenges.

This paper examines the pedagogical practices that develop such skills by drawing on lessons from Rwanda’s 12+ programme, a non-formal life skills programme for adolescent girls.

These ingredients of effective life skills led to the development of adolescent girls’ skills, knowledge, and attitudes.

Teacher education and ongoing professional development should focus on strengthening teachers’ capacity to use learner-centred, interactive methods, and to foster positive social relationships with and amongst learners.

Authors: Sophia D’Angelo, Rachel Marcus and Ernest Ngabo