Roundtable Presentation 6th World Congress on Positive Psychology 2019

Integrating Positive Psychology In Teacher Education Curriculum In India (#319)

Anindita Bhattacharya 1
  1. Azim Premji University, Bangalore, KARNATAKA, India

There has been an exponential increase in the number of adolescents suffering from common mental health disorders and committing suicide worldwide. Children spend a large amount of time at school. Schools and teachers play an extremely important role in teaching essential skills to students to take care of their mental health and enhance well-being. Happiness curriculum has been added as an ad hoc course recently in many schools across Delhi to help children manage their life better by focusing on their emotional and social well-being. However, the responsibility of designing and conducting these courses are left with non governmental organisations. Positive Education is an approach to education that blends academic learning with character & well-being. The teacher education curriculum in the Indian context lacks any positive education course which can provide the instructors with necessary knowledge to embed positive psychology concepts in the curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. This paper argues for the need of such a course which can equip all the teachers and help them embed positive education concepts in their teaching as well as classroom management techniques instead of depending on external agencies to teach just an additional course on happiness and well-being.