Enrol at LU to ‘learn’ happiness

LUCKNOW: Going beyond the limits of imparting theoretical knowledge to students, Lucknow University is set to launch a ‘model of happiness’ in its curriculum.

The proposal for this course was put forward during the meeting of board of studies on Thursday. “The proposal was passed. The course will be offered to students from the new academic session,” said Prof Amita Bajpai of the education department.

The education department has also chalked out the syllabus for the yearlong course, which will be interdisciplinary, allowing students of every department to enroll in it. The course includes portions ranging from Charvak (ancient school on materialism) to Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy.

“Happiness course will have five units, including several aspects related to happiness. Its aim is to make students realise what happiness is,” said Bajpai.

“While researching for the course, we realised that the current generation has a false sense of happiness, which is overpowered by outward appreciation. The objective of the course will be to make students realise that happiness is internal and personal,” said Bajpai. “In this age and era, we tend to connect happiness with worldly possessions. But societies that don’t have this mindset are usually happier. Bhutan, which tops the Gross National Happiness (GNH) index, is a great example. Bhutan is not very developed and people have very humble standards of living, but yet they are happy,” the professor added.

Bhutan is also linked to the idea of a happiness course at LU. The proposal to introduce the course was put forward during last year’s visit of Thakur S Powdyel, educator and politician, who served as the minister of education with royal government of Bhutan from 2008 to 2013.

“Students, many of whom will become future teachers, will learn about happiness and we hope that they will pioneer the wave of awareness of happiness in the country,” said Bajpai.HTC