What works in 21st century skills education in sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic review

This systematic review explores the relevance, implementation, and assessment of 21st century life skills education in sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on socio-emotional learning, soft skills, and resilience. It identifies life skills as essential for youth development, particularly among vulnerable populations facing social and economic adversity. Despite policy recognition across sub-Saharan Africa, life skills integration into education systems remains inconsistent due to infrastructural gaps, teacher preparedness, and lack of culturally relevant frameworks. The review analyses 27 intervention assessments, revealing that experiential, structured, and contextually adapted pedagogies-particularly those targeting internal domains like self-esteem and self-efficacy-yield significant psychosocial and educational outcomes. It also highlights a critical gap in validated, context-sensitive assessment tools, with most relying on Western self-report measures. Community and school-based programs showed positive outcomes, especially when grounded in participatory learning and local relevance. The study underscores the need for scalable models, systemic evaluation, and policy alignment, and advocates for strengthening teacher training and community involvement. It concludes with recommendations to enhance life skills programming through sustained, context-specific approaches and improved measurement frameworks. The findings aim to inform policymakers, educators, and practitioners in developing effective strategies for fostering youth competencies across the region.