NPR

To Focus On Students' Emotional Well-Being, India Tries 'Happiness Classes'

This month, Delhi students saw a new course added to their traditionally rigid curriculum. To confront academic pressures linked to India's high suicide rate, public schools are teaching mindfulness.
Students in India have begun to engage in creative activities as a part of newly launched program by the Delhi government to shift emphasis onto mental health well-being.

For the past three weeks, students across India's capital have been attending a radical new course: happiness.

The Delhi government introduced "happiness classes" in an effort to shift the country's academic focus from student achievement to emotional well-being. In a country that uses standardized testing to determine student success, offers a limited number of seats in top universities and sets high expectations, educators have been seeing mental health consequences.

Delhi's Education Minister Manish Sisodia the day the program launched at the start of the month.

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