This open access book is written for educators and policymakers who seek to empower young
people with competencies necessary for fulfilling lives in the 21st century. It reports how a
large group of educators from government and civil society organisations together with
researchers from universities used their curriculum assessment and social economy expertise
to develop contextualised definitions of life skills and values and associated assessment
tools. The book also reports on levels of these competencies of over 45 000 adolescents from a
household-based assessment conducted in Kenya Tanzania and Uganda. The results describe how
these adolescents vary in proficiency by region age and other factors providing a resource
for national education ministries to factor into policy decisions. Given the technical
requirements of measuring individuals' social-emotional and related competencies how is it
possible to capture an adolescent's life skills across varied contexts? The book provides
readers with a pragmatic yet technically robust process for undertaking a large-scale
assessment program designed to inform policy.
