A smart way to teach life skills to children
ONCE regarded as a fringe subject on the curriculum – and one that was largely targeted at female students – the potential and importance of home economics has for far too long been ignored when it comes to the education of our children.
Now the Government is being urged to make home economics a compulsory subject on the Junior Certificate curriculum for all students. This is a positive move and one that should be welcomed by students and parents alike.
The only surprising aspect in relation to this initiative is that it has taken so long for home economics, with all the dimensions that comprise the modern-day subject, to be recognised as the essential life skills aid that it actually is.
Covering a varied and practical array of topics, home economics is no longer about simply sewing and cooking.
Rather, the syllabus encompasses all kinds of strands, including family budgeting, nutrition, consumer studies, food hygiene and childcare.
It aims, in other words, to equip youngsters to live independent lives and give them the skills and understanding that will carry them through, and help them to cope with all the practical matters that have to be dealt with on a daily basis.
In a country where obesity and all of its attendant health problems are now a major concern, to see young teenagers from the takeaway generation being taught about nutrition and about the preparation of food is of vital importance. That they are being helped to live healthier lives – not because someone is ordering them to, but because they now understand themselves what is involved – can only have positive knock-on effects for the health of the nation into the future.
The world has changed. With young couples setting up a family home together, or with young people engaged in house-sharing, it is imperative that home economics loses its old-fashioned gender bias.
To study home economics is to provide practical learning that will help prepare our youngsters for the lives that lie ahead of them. That it should be compulsory for all is, therefore, a no-brainer.