According to Hindustan Times, Manish Sisodia, Delhi’s education minister, was invited as a guest speaker on an online panel discussion on the happiness curriculum of the Delhi government by the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) during its International Education Week.
“Happiness curriculum is not a value education class that preaches moral values to students. Instead, it focuses on developing the mindset of the students to adopt values in their everyday attitude and behaviour ”, said Sisodia. He was part of a discussion titled “systematic social-emotional learning of the happiness curriculum” held on the 17th of November. According to him, the Delhi government wanted to design a curriculum for students that would prepare them to become lifelong learners.
Sisodia said education is the only way to reform society and politicians should work as facilitators of education. “Education is the only tool available that can reform society, and give us a society that we all dream of. Education, globally, is being used to fill unemployment gaps and lessen poverty, but it still doesn’t address more human problems that society faces.”
He went on to state that successful education models around the world produce professionally sound but not emotionally sound people. The Happiness Curriculum encourages students to be open and self-aware while building a confident and holistic mindset towards caste, creed, and religion.
Professor Fernando Reimers, Ford Foundation professor of practice in international education at Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) lauded the education minister’s vision and was impressed by the government’s tackling of challenges in building capacities of teachers and enforcing the curriculum in all Delhi Government schools. “In a world that is changing very rapidly, with an uncertain future with this pandemic being a reminder, it’s important to question the deep purposes of schools and education,” he said.
The Happiness Curriculum was enforced by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in government schools in Delhi from July 2018. Under it, nursery and kindergarten students and students from classes 1 to 8 engage in meditation, storytelling and activity sessions.
Cover Image Source : The Logical India
