What life skills are not taught in school?

It will be easier to answer the question: What is taught in Indian schools?

Only one thing is taught: How to crack standardized exams?

That too is taught well only in the better-staffed schools. The vast majority of schools don’t teach even that one skill properly.

From their early days, students are made aware of the list of exams that are available for them to take a shot at. The exam pattern is fixed. The syllabus is fully laid out. Which books to read is made clear in advance. The preparation time table is managed by teachers at school (or coaching classes, for tougher exams).

You crack exams based on your individual ability to comply with the process. No need to collaborate with others. No need to take initiatives. No need to take risks. No need to convince others to buy your ideas.

Just follow, follow, follow.

Then they step into the big bad world outside the education system. Now, they are equipped to do well only when everything is set up for them as a process to follow.

If somebody else starts a business, takes risk by investing in it, convinces clients to sign contracts, gets a project and translates that project into small chunks they can individually execute - good! They can then possibly do well.

They can do fine in Government jobs where there is a laid down procedure for everything. There are unwritten processes even for how to take bribes. They can just follow that.

But if they don’t get those kinds of jobs, they can barely survive. No initiative. No ability to get other people to back their ideas. No risk taking. No group-work and collaboration. No ability to improve oneself without someone else pushing them.

They may have a skill, but they don’t know how to translate that into money without somebody else creating that translating mechanism.

If they happen to be in a room full of influential people, they won’t know how to work the room and make new friends.

If there is a pothole on the road, they don’t know who to approach and how to lobby to get that fixed.

If they witness an accident on the road, they wouldn’t know how to provide assistance.

If a woman faces harassment, she doesn’t know how to gather courage to complain and get the harasser punished.

Just put up with things and wait for somebody else to create the systems and procedures.

In our exam-oriented system, anything out-of-syllabus is not tolerated. Students, parents, teachers - everybody will protest loudly if something out of syllabus is asked in an exam.

In real life, everything is out of syllabus.