Life skills help students learn to love learning

We've been partnering with Instituto Aliança since 2009. Founded in 2002, it specialises in creating methodologies to incorporate life and work skills into the public high school curriculum, with a particular focus on socio-emotional learning. The central core of the methodological proposal is the groups formed by the students to share their life plans and review their implementation together. They proved that this approach elevates students' interest in school and therefore decreases drop-out rates.

The team has developed pedagogical material and helped build the capacity of teachers, school directors and public officers with a view to honing the approach and scaling it up. Their educational methodologies were evaluated by the Inter-American Development Bank and showed to have positive impact particularly in those who presented lower socio-emotional competencies in the initial assessment, therefore also contributing to the decrease of inequalities. The methodology is now public policy in Ceará, one of the most poorest states in the northeast of Brazil, and the organisation has begun replicating the experience in other states, with initial pilots taking place in Bahia and São Paulo.