SECONDARY schools will soon be required to integrate a comprehensive programme of values training into the school’s extra-curricula activities, starting at grade seven.

The HEART Trust/NTA, in collaboration with the National Youth Service (NYS), is proposing to implement the programme using a values and attitudes manual developed by the NYS and which has been used to train NYS participants and tertiary students of the JAMVAT programme.

The manual has five units: self development and interpersonal skills, citizenship, conflict resolution, family life and work ethics.

The recently-tabled Task Force on Education report calls for a citizens’ education programme in schools that would address serious issues of anti-social and violent behaviour. Specifically it calls for training in values and attitudes, character education, patriotism and service and recommends mandatory co-curricula or extra-curricula enrollment for all students.

HEART and NYS are proposing to infuse the manual’s curriculum in the activities of the clubs and societies, such as the Inter Schools Christian Fellowship, Girl Guides, Brownies, Cadets and other clubs and societies operating within the schools.

“The NYS is bogged down now in providing values and attitudes to people who have already passed through the system. Our intention is to ensure that the young people who pass through the system have been already socialised,” said Robert Gregory, executive director of the HEART Trust/NTA.

“This initiative, which we expect will be supervised and overseen by the NYS, will ensure the proper and focused socialisation of all the products of our education system,” Gregory said.

At the same time, executive director of the National Youth Service Rev Adinhair Jones said the proposal is to start with a sensitisation programme at grade seven to nine, and follow through grades 10 and 11, with more intensive training that would not only influence positive behaviour changes but also help the students make wise career choices.

“We believe this (programme) is critical because if we are saying that 80 per cent of students leaving school are not employable or ready for tertiary education, it really means that we have to work at not only the cognitive but their whole social and psychological development and character formulation,” Rev Jones said.

He said details of how the NYS will monitor the programme in the schools are still being worked out, but noted that successful implementation will depend, in part, on the cooperation of school staff.