This is how feedback taken during the trial period helped in modifying the curriculum, and after summer vacations, from the first week of July, the course was started for students from classes 9 to 12 in all the 1000 schools with the number of students totalling up to 6 lakh. Before this, 20,000 teachers were given an orientation and training.
Just like in the happiness class, a lot of stress is laid on mindfulness in the EMC. The first five minutes of these classes are for mindfulness. In addition to this, one period every month is especially dedicated to this. Students feel tremendous change in themselves because they practise mindfulness. The first five minutes of every class calms all their inner unrest and guides their thoughts in a positive direction so they can focus better on the case studies, discussions and activities given in the EMC.
I am of the opinion that the happiness class and the EMC complement each other. In the crucial period between nursery and class 8, when students need emotional development, the happiness class helps them. When they are in classes 9 to 12 and focused on their future and careers, the EMC helps them broaden their intellectual horizons. I believe that if this mindset is developed properly for four years, then the two and a half lakh students of Delhi won’t chase jobs, rather jobs will run after them. And if, of these two and a half lakh students, even 25,000–30,000 children become job providers instead of jobseekers, then the issue of paucity of jobs will be solved.
As I said at the beginning of this chapter, the aim of this curriculum is to instil confidence in students and thus initiate change in the Indian economy, to strive to develop it as an economy of job creators and job providers rather than of jobseekers.
And one day we will be able to achieve this goal.
This Is Just the Beginning . . .
I consider the work we have done on education in the last five years as a foundation stone. Till now, we have worked only on making the foundation strong. The tower of education still has to be built. What also remains to be achieved is the beginning of a happy and self-confident, creative and positive society created by education. It has only been a year since the happiness class started. Work on the EMC has just started. In the education department, officers working at the district and zonal levels are on a par with principals. We tried to put an end to their wait for promotions but since it was a service matter, the request is being reviewed by the Supreme Court. There are thousands of positions vacant for principals in government schools. Vice principals have also not been promoted. Almost 5000 out of 55,000 teaching positions don’t have teachers while 22,000 guest teachers are working on an ad hoc basis. Though we increased the salary of guest teachers two years ago to bring it on a par with that of permanent teachers, they neither get promotions nor do they have any job security. We have to make the position of guest teachers stable too. How can people who live with the fear of losing their job function properly with a calm mind? In my estimate, we need around 10 per cent more than the required number of teachers. This is to cover leaves and training breaks. This means that if we need 55,000 teachers, then we should have 61,500 teachers available. We can then send our teachers to institutions abroad for training for an adequate period of time. We can then grant them leaves as per their entitlement. Many a time, female teachers don’t get childcare leaves because we don’t have enough teachers. It is because of this reason that we have to start the tradition of increasing the number of teachers by 10 per cent.
The happiness class, which has been around for a year now, has given us many examples where we have seen a huge change in a number of children. There has been an improvement in their studies. There have been examples where teenaged rebellion towards society and especially towards parents has given way to love and respect. We have to make sure that this programme reaches the subconscious of the children. We have to show that education not only teaches a child science or maths but also guarantees positive thoughts and good behaviour. We have to give the guarantee that when a child starts working after completing school and college, he/she will not do anything dishonest. He/she will work honestly without exploiting others.
Through the entrepreneurial mindset we have to build every child’s self-confidence. We have to make sure that they have confidence in their abilities to make them think big and new and pursue it with courage; that when they start working in a job or start a business, they can march ahead without any fear or uncertainty. Through this curriculum we want to create a generation that can establish companies such as Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Sony, Samsung and Walmart in India. The day that happens, the Indian economy would be able to face the world with pride and India wouldn’t be called a country of unemployed educated youths. This cannot happen just by giving them engineering or management degrees. For this, the country’s mindset has to be made entrepreneurial and that is the reason for starting this course from class 9.
We also have to start a curriculum on patriotism on the lines of the happiness class and the EMC. The purpose of the happiness class is to develop a child’s emotional side to make him sensitive and well-behaved. In the same way, the aim of the EMC is to make them more professional. The patriotism curriculum or the citizenship curriculum will be aimed at making the ties between children and society and also the country stronger, so that the children understand their importance. It is our plan to start this curriculum from the next semester. We have started preparing for it. Thus, the engineers, doctors, managers, lawyers, journalists, merchants, bureaucrats, soldiers, researchers, teachers and politicians who have studied the happiness, entrepreneurship and patriotism curricula in school and college will not just be skilled but well-behaved too.
These are the big steps in the conceptualization of education and it will take time to bring them to fruition. In the last four years, we have initiated many programmes that are not finalized yet or there are a few we have planned but have not been able to execute. We have to start and finalize them either this year or the next.
Of these, in my opinion, the most important programmes that will help me achieve the improvement in education that I have envisioned are:
Halving the current curriculum: A huge part of the learning outcome that we want to achieve from other subjects, such as literature, history and science, is being covered in the happiness class and the EMC. The way of teaching them is so exciting and interesting that children are fast gaining expertise in them. This knowledge is not being achieved by rote learning or appearing for exams. That is why teaching the same things in other subjects is a waste of the students’ time. There is no need for that. So, we are analysing which topics from which subjects can be removed. I hope that because of this, the curricula of other subjects will almost be halved. We will also not waste time teaching them in the traditional way. We will have to halve the coursework in the future.
Improving the structure of the Delhi education department: As of now, the structure of the Delhi education department is something like this: One director, a few regional directors under him/her and eleven districts under them. These districts are managed by the deputy director district. There are twenty-nine zones under them. These are managed by the deputy director zones. The schools are under them. Schools ideally have a principal and a vice-principal and there are teachers according to the number of subjects being offered and the students. Statistically speaking, there are fifty schools in one zone. We are planning in a way that there will be five or ten schools in one zone and every zone will be like a hub. The head of the zone will be a senior principal, and among the five to ten schools in that zone, a few will specialize in certain areas. For example, a few schools will specialize in science, some in arts, some in sports, some in commerce or in subjects of the humanities. A child will be able to choose a school according to his/her aptitude or interest near his/her home. The schools under an entire zone will be run like a hub to optimally utilize the facilities and talent.
Change in the examination system: I have felt this time and again and have been raising this issue too. Class
room teaching does not focus on learning as such; instead, it highlights the pattern of often-asked questions in the last four or five years. Questions asked in previous examinations cast a huge shadow on the way teachers teach a topic and how students learn it. It won’t be wrong to say that our way of teaching is slave to the way questions were asked in previous years. There is a need to change this system, and we in Delhi are gearing up for this. To this end, we instituted a new examination improvement team, and there have been substantial change in the question papers that have been prepared by the Delhi education department in the last two years. The question papers that earlier used to test knowledge acquired through mugging up are now testing the different aspects of a child’s understanding of the subject. The problem is that there is no training or tradition to be followed for this. This is an experiment and is progressing slowly. When this work is complete, I am fully confident that there will be a huge change in the scholastic environment of the classrooms.
Instituting a new education board in Delhi: This is an irony, but I see it as a blessing that there is no education board in Delhi. We are preparing to give Delhi its own education board. We thought about this in 2015 itself and even started working towards it. However, when we saw the condition of the buildings and got a sense of the scholastic environment in the classes, we realized that before introducing a new board, we had to first work on improving the infrastructure. So, we had to put this work on the backburner for a bit, but I feel it is now time to create a Delhi education board. Under this, we will create a curriculum keeping in mind a child’s situation and not dump subjects and syllabi based on some idealistic philosophy. We have done the groundwork. In my opinion, Delhi should not be given a new board just because it doesn’t have one. Instead, it should be a board that will throw up new ways of teaching and learning and an innovative curriculum. The examination system and curriculum should be practical. For example, as of now, if a class 12 student wants to appear for the IIT entrance exam, there is no scope for preparing for it through the Central Board’s science or maths coursework. It clearly means that the kind of expertise required in these subjects to enter institutions such as the IITs have not been included in the coursework of the Central Board. The truth is that for students preparing for IITs and NEET, the syllabus of the Central Board is only about 10 per cent helpful. The remaining is for the students to navigate. Is this not proof of the fact that our Central Board is running away from the responsibility of preparing our class 12 students for entrance exams? Why can’t our school boards fill the gap that coaching institutions are? Why is there such a huge difference in the preparation for boards and entrance exams? There can be different models for different students, but if a child has to go to a coaching centre to clear entrance exams, then what is the point of conducting board exams? Why take so much of a student’s time in preparing for board exams? The kind of board we are working on will help students reach the level required to clear entrance exams such as IIT, NEET and CAT. This board has adopted the same perspective for music, sports, chartered accountancy, management, etc.
Establishing a teacher training university: In this day and age, there is no institution that can train teachers every five to seven years once they get their B.Ed degrees or clear the CTET. They need this training. The Delhi government will establish a university where new teachers will be created and current teachers will be trained at an international level. In my opinion, this will be the biggest reform in the training of teachers.
Establishing an applied sciences university: The Delhi government will establish an applied sciences university where vocational education will be given importance. Currently, there are no clear programmes for the students who choose vocational studies in classes 11 and 12. This university will prioritize admissions of these students and will give them an opportunity to become graduates or post-graduates in their subjects. An advantage will be that subjects that are usually not seen in a favourable light, because you cannot do graduation or post-graduation in them, will become the first choice of students.
Establishing sports universities: We will create a sports university on the lines of the university of applied sciences. Here, we will enable students interested in sports to become graduates and post-graduates in other subjects on a basic minimum level and also help them get graduation and post-graduation degrees in sports-related subjects. We have seen that students who excel in sports usually move away from studies after school. Many of them are not able to shine in sports. They only get those jobs where the basic requirement is passing class 12. A rising sportsperson had once asked me, ‘I put in more effort and time in sports than a student of geography or science puts in after school but your system gives him a graduation degree after three to four years but the medals and certificates I get don’t get me a graduation degree. This is in spite of the fact that the achievements of a sportsperson bring pride to his/her city and country. But if I have to progress as a sportsperson, I get jobs that are for those who have just cleared class 12. How is this my fault?’ It was this question that made me think of starting a sports university. In the coming years, people will be able to get degrees while playing the sport of their choice. Their degrees will not be based on classroom teaching but on the basis of their performance at state, national and international levels.
Good infrastructure, good classrooms, neat and clean buildings, labs, libraries—all these projects need to progress with more speed. There are more than 4 million children in Delhi who study in Delhi government or Delhi Nagar Nigam or private schools. Of these, a few even study in unrecognized schools meaning private schools that have not been approved by the Delhi government or Delhi Nagar Nigam. The Delhi government needs to aim at equipping all government schools so that the more than 4 million children in Delhi opt for them. Then, even if a child decides to study in a private school or takes some other decision, Delhi schools should have the facilities to give all the children in Delhi a quality education.
These are some preparations and dreams for education. These preparations and dreams will throw up more needs and dreams. From them will emerge a good society, country and people. It is this hope that keeps me going. I hope that, one day, education will become an important point of debate in the political discourse of our country. That day, we won’t have to struggle but thrive.
The state of a classroom in Shaheed Hemu Kalani Sarvodaya Bal Vidyalaya, Lajpat Nagar, in 2015
The state of the same classroom in Shaheed Hemu Kalani Sarvodaya Bal Vidyalaya, Lajpat Nagar, in 2018
When Manish Sisodia talks to principals and teachers, they tell him how the happiness class has changed the behaviour of students in just one year
Through mindfulness, children learn to focus on the goings-on in their bodies and the thoughts in their minds
On 2 July 2018, His Holiness the Dalai Lama (centre) launched Delhi government’s happiness class along with Arvind Kejriwal (right) and Manish Sisodia at the Thyagaraj Stadium
Activities are also an integral part of the happiness class. The aim is to help children analyse, understand and evaluate their thought processes.
In 2017–18, twenty-three District Institute of Education and Training (DIET) and State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) faculty members, eleven Directorate of Education officials and 165 mentor–teachers visited National Institute of Education, Singapore, to attend the mentoring and coaching course
State-of-the-art swimming pools in Annie Besant Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya, Mayur Vihar-Phase II, for active bodies and sound minds. Swimming pools were made in schools for the first time by the Aam Aadmi Party government.
Acknowledgements
The story of the Delhi education model is the story of possibilities emerging from a politics of honesty, courage and vision that Delhi chose in 2015 under the leadership of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. I wouldn’t have even thought of embarking on this journey of education without the encouragement of Arvind Kejriwal who gave me the opportunity and
freedom to engage with education. I wouldn’t have been able to realize my dreams and hopes for education as an education minister without someone like you. Gratitude is also due to Satyendra Jain, a visionary PWD minister, who shared my dream of making government schools better than private schools and played the role of creating infrastructure that matched this dream. I also thank the people of Delhi who voted us in and gave us the mandate to work on education.
It is often said that no man is an island. It is said to stress the importance of teamwork. It is teamwork that makes a journey reach its destination. My pursuit of a stellar education for our future generations has been nothing short of a pilgrimage and many co-travellers have helped me take every step and reach many milestones. I’d like to acknowledge and thank my team, ‘Team Education’. Its members are all the principals and teachers of Delhi government schools, officers of the education department, members of SMCs and their coordinating teams and many educationists. I could not have taken even a step without your support and cooperation.
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