Ambedkar University to soon launch its happiness programme

New Delhi: Ambedkar University of Delhi (AUD) is likely to launch the three-month happiness programme for adults soon.

A draft curriculum of the programme will be placed before the AUD academic council, which is scheduled to meet later this month, officials said. The programme is inspired from the happiness curriculum taught at Delhi government’s schools.

“We had planned to place the draft before the consultative committee of experts in March last year but that could not happen due to the pandemic. We then submitted the draft curriculum to the consultative committee last September,” said Kartik Dave, who is working on the curriculum development and is the Dean of School of Business, Public Policy and Social Entrepreneurship. “We are almost ready with the changes and will be submitting the updated curriculum to the council around mid-January.”

Following the success of happiness curriculum in Delhi government schools where students from classes 1 to 8 were introduced to mindfulness and other exercises, the programme gained popularity with even former chief justice of India Ranjan Gogoi suggesting in August 2019 that judicial academies too could have such classes. Following the announcement, AUD, which is a state university, said it would prepare a happiness curriculum for judges which would involve “practical learning”.

The consultative panel members noted that the three-month certificate programme has become more relevant following the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent mental health crisis. “Long-term happiness will come once we start accepting things around us and be able to handle situations. Changes have been introduced in the curriculum to make it suitable for the current period because we know how important mental health and well-being is,” said Dave, adding that they would sensitise people on “empathy and compassion”.

“For instance, family as an institution became more important during the pandemic and in our journey of happiness. So, we have focused upon that in the curriculum. Participants will be made to realize the importance of work-life balance and spending more time with family for maintaining harmony within themselves and with their family,” he said.

The three-month certificate programme can be customized for different sectors like police, judiciary and government departments.

In addition to the three-month certificate programme, the committee also plans to introduce a one-year diploma course for those wanting to replicate the happiness curriculum model. However, committee members said they would take more time to prepare the proposal for the “train-the-trainers” programme as it needs “further elaboration” based on the feedback received from the roll-out of the certificate programme.

Source: Read Full Article