Researcher Amal Issa Mashal, a student in the Ph.D. program in educational administration, has defended her thesis titled “Foreseeing educational policies to develop life skills among secondary school students in Palestine”.
The study aimed to track Palestinian educational policies that dealt with life skills through analysis through the educational policy analysis approach. It also aimed to identify the reality of life skills practice by secondary school students in the cities of Al-Bireh and Ramallah from the point of view of the students themselves, their teachers, and their school principals. To achieve the objectives of this study, the researcher used the descriptive approach (quantitative through questionnaire, and qualitative through interviews). The questionnaire was applied to a random cluster sample of secondary school students, 353 male and female students, including 124 male, 229 female, and 160 male and female teachers, distributed among 11 schools, including 70 male and 90 female teachers. As for school principals, a comprehensive survey method was used when choosing the interview instrument, and they number of school principals was 11.
The results of the study showed that there are no clear and explicit Palestinian educational policies that include the development of life skills among secondary school students. Also, the reality of practicing life skills among secondary school students in public schools from the point of view of the students themselves was great, and the skills came in the order of digital technology skill (technology) or digital technology skill, information and communication technology, self-management/self-awareness skill, teamwork and participation skill, communication skill, problem-solving and decision-making skill. The reality of practicing life skills among students in the scientific stream is better than that among students in the literary stream, especially in the skills of teamwork and participation and the skill of digital technologies, which is better than the practice of students in the literary stream. It turns out that eleventh and twelfth grade students have the same degree of practice of these life skills. From the teachers’ point of view, it was moderate. It was also found that the highest skill was the skill of digital technologies (technology) or the skill of information and communication technology, followed by the skill of communication, then the skill of teamwork and participation, then the skill of self-management/self-awareness, followed by the skill of problem solving and decision-making. This was consistent with the school principals' point of view. As a result of the above, the study recommends adopting the proposed policy paper for developing life skills among secondary school students.
The Dissertation was supervised by Dr. Ghassan Sarhan. The committee of examiners included Dr. Khawla Shakhshir, Dr. Ahmad Batta, and Dr. Majdi Zamel.