A curriculum to make students happy
NEW DELHI: The Delhi government’s focus in the education sector has moved from the brick and mortar model to ensuring the emotional well-being of its students. The state budget proposed to make classrooms stress-free.
Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said that to ensure overall development of students, the government will be starting schemes like ‘Happiness Curriculum’ in nursery till Class 8.
“In our first year, we focused on improving the basic infrastructure and the next two years we focused on training of teachers. Now we are introducing ‘Happiness Curriculum’. This will help make students stay happy and confident,” he said.
The government also proposed that the state schools engage more with parents and conduct special workshops for them.
In the annual budget for 20182019, t he education sector received the highest share — 26% of the total budget. The total budget for education is ₹13,997 crore.
Major announcements included computer tablets to school teachers, evaluation of government schools, installing CCTV cameras and starting ‘Mission Buniyaad’ for Class 1 to 8.
Sisodia said that the alleged suicide by a Class 9 student was a failure of the system that judged the student on the basis of marks rather than her talent.
Self-defence classes will be started in government school for girl students; ₹10 crore has been allocated for this . “₹5 lakh to each SMCS to spend on needs of students,” Sisodia said.
Sisodia said 30 new school buildings and 12,748 additional classrooms will be built along with setting up of nursery classes in 366 Sarvodaya Vidyalayas.
Education experts have given mixed reactions to the budget.
“Some of the ideas are good like engaging parents with schools,” said Poonam Batra, professor of education at Delhi University. “But there appears to be no pedagogical rationale for having a separate happiness curriculum. Happiness is embedded in the process of learning, it can’t be taught as static curriculum,” she said.
Happiness curriculum’ is an interesting idea because the academic success of a student also depends on emotional health
ANNIE KOSHI, principal, St Mary’s school
HIGHER EDUCATION
The government also launched a ‘merit-cum-means linked financial assistance’ for students enrolled i n undergraduate courses in seven state universities that will give financial assistance equivalent to 100% of tuition fee to students from families having National Food Security Card.
The government has allocated ₹315 crore to set up 25 new worldclass skill development centres and also announced setting up of 13 new language academies.