Life Skills Education Will Benefit the Cotton Textile Sector
September 1, 2022 Ongoing global situations like inflation, price volatilities, and the continuing pandemic are putting stress across many sectors, affecting the price and demand of textiles. Managing difficult situations demand important life skills like confidence, diplomacy, planning, long term analysis of situations, and utilizing interdisciplinary talents.
It has become clear that industries like textiles, cotton production, and manufacturing need to interact with academia, policy makers, and brands for mid- to long-term planning. While it has become a widespread practice to seek management expertise, COVID-19 has emphasized the need to get support for enhancing life skills that focus on human centric attributes like empathy, counseling, managing difficult scenarios, and more.
Recently, I had an opportunity to present the importance of life skills as part of creating innovative ideas in an event jointly organized by the Indian Association of Life Skills Education (IALSE) and Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences in India. The event attracted students, faculty, and members of IALSE.
How can one innovate was the question posed as the theme of the meeting. I placed the argument that everyone is an innovator in their own way and, by watching the society around us, we become innovators. Listening and paying attention to what happens in society are important life skills that are needed for development.
“Life skills promote the enhancement of key psycho-social skills such as communication, interpersonal relationship, managing our emotions, stress, and cognitive skills such as critical thinking, problem solving and decision making,” stated Sunitha Ranjan, IALSE President.
How can life skill education support the cotton, textile, and manufacturing sectors was the question posed by Dr. Ram Asrey Lal, Chairperson of the North India Section of The Textile Institute. In answering this question, I emphasized the need for better communication among stakeholders in the cotton sector about weather, agronomic, and marketing practices. By adopting scientific approaches in sourcing cotton, analyzing supply and demand data on from reliable sources like USDA, observing global economic patterns, and being better informed using reliable data are some ways one can manage risks in the textile sector.
As an example, Lubbock-based Plains Cotton Growers, Inc. meets regularly during the cotton growing season to discuss the crop situation, insect and weed pressures, and marketing details. The interesting aspect of these meetings is the participation of multiple stakeholders including cotton farmers, bankers, seed companies, academics, researchers, and representatives of elected politicians. The platform involves active participation of different groups of the sector in discussions of topical matters. This is indeed practicing life skills for advancing the cause.
“Life skills help in developing relationship and resiliency. It helps to connect well with people of different work and cultural backgrounds,” stated Dr. Radhakrishnan Nair, Founder President of IALSE.
The global cotton sector can benefit greatly from life skill education. Given the current global textile situation, the industry should involve life skill educators to impart timely skills to people within the textile sector.
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