Life skills is the most important part of the curriculum for women at female and mixed intake RTCs, but at some centres women are given the opportunity to learn basic mechanics, joinery, plumbing, rice milling as well as the traditional skills of gardening, sewing and basket weaving.

RTCs such as Manivovo in Makira Province, and St Anne's in Western Province, combine instruction in traditional crafts with more industrialized training. Divit RTC on Guadalcanal offers young women the opportunity to concentrate on agricultural activities such as bee-keeping, poulty, piggery and market gardening.

The culture of such RTCs allows women to discover talents they had never been permitted to explore. Graduates can then return to their villages better equipped to help their families and communities.

Most women in the Solomon Islands live a semi-subsistence rural lifestyle. Most have traditional roles as mothers, housekeepers, carers and gardeners.

Several SIARTC RTCs offer courses that are specifically geared toward rural women not only to improve their traditional skills, but to give them new skills, to improve their lives. Of the 34 SIARTCs RTC, three have a female only intake. SIARTC is committed to improving the quality of training offered to females at RTCs, and is developing a new life skills curriculum aimed at appropriate skills for rural living.