As a former teacher of Home Economics with specialised training (Cert.Ed. - Home Economics), I did what other Home Economics teachers abroad were doing at the time. I followed a degree course in Social Studies with further enrichment in psychology and sociology at the University of Malta.
Abroad others did the same in areas like nutrition, textiles, science and design. During a 30-year span this led to the development of Home Economics into the Human Ecology perspective.
Human life is made up of various components of which the psycho-social is just one. Family-life Education courses have found their way into curricula and University outreach programmes where their need was necessitated by the multitude of difficulties which families have encountered in rapidly changing times. This was done as a measure to strengthen families.
Home Economists are now more than ever conscious of being updated in their content areas to give substance to their multi-disciplinary approach, including the Karl Rogers school of thought for methods of delivery. Home Economics focuses primarily on experimental learning.
Social psychology skills as methods of delivery are an essential asset of Home Economics teachers together with other teaching skills. That is because of the wider perspective of Human Ecology and the most effective and succinct ways of bringing about or changing attitudes and awareness.
As a former head of school, I feel that the inclusion of content from Home Economics would also be useful at the primary level through which teachers can encourage healthy food habits and basic skills in patterns of behaviours and attitudes at both the social and family level, very effectively at an earlier age.
Home Economics has always been a most appropriate link between home and school through which many home-linked educational strategies have been affected.
The inclusion of PSE in schools may have given the impression that it has taken over part of the work which is usually done by the Home Economics teacher.
Both have the skills necessary to teach Home Economics content with regard to the psycho-social aspect in different ways.
Primarily the content for the whole of the school years is of a highly professional nature and should be an integrated exercise from expertise. Once a realistic and culturally oriented design of curriculum courses has been done a solution can be found as to who is to teach what.
A team effort may be most appropriate if the good of the children being taught is a priority surpassing all vested interests - and if, in the circumstances, required skills are scattered across "subjects". A holistic sense should be maintained, which could be monitored by subject co-ordinators and reflected in papers set to test progress and achievements.
As a further development for better education management, professional Home Economists can be trained at University to be fully equipped with all necessary skills.
Professional expertise of Home Economics can establish another dimension of work restructuring to modern times and its productivity in the fields of education, family social work, food and textile industry, building and design, and household technology areas, all needing the incorporation of a family perspective.
Because of this, Home Economics is becoming more useful, especially because of its local orientation, being relevant only if attached to specific times.
It is an ever developing area for changing times because of the new and reconstituted ways in which the family as the basic cell of society interacts with the environment, whether material or spiritual in every sense of the word.