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Education – Innovations

Delhi Education Song

On 19 Apr 2022, the AAP Delhi Government released the Delhi Education Song, that instils a sense of hope and pride in India and could just move you to tears.

IB curriculum for Sarvodaya schools and Schools of Specialised Excellence

The AAP Delhi Government entered into an agreement with the IB (International Baccalaureate) for 20 Schools of Specialised Excellence and 10 Sarvodaya schools in Sept, 2021.

[ The IB is a private international education board with its headquarters in Geneva. It has around 5,500 schools in 169 countries. There are currently 193 IB schools in India, all of which are top-end elite private schools. ]

“Under this agreement, international experts will visit our schools, our teachers will be trained accordingly, a student assessment programme will be planned out and Delhi’s schools will be verified and certified, all as per international standards.” – Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi CM

Happiness curriculum to improve mental well-being of pupils

Happiness Curriculum is an educational program introduced in July 2018 for children studying in nursery to grade 8 in schools run by the Government of Delhi. The objective is to improve the mental well-being of pupils. It teaches mindfulness, social-emotional learning, critical thinking, problem solving, and relationship building. 

The Happiness Curriculum was designed over a period of six months by a team of 40 education consultants, teachers, teacher educators, EVGCs, mentor teachers from the Delhi Government, NGOs and individuals.

The AAP Delhi Government launched the Happiness Curriculum in all Government schools of NCT of Delhi for classes Nursery to 8 on July 2, 2018. It was inaugurated by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.

It involves 10 lakh Delhi government school students and 50,000 teachers. 

The happiness period includes mindfulness practice, story-telling and reflective discussions. Each child is encouraged to reflect and express their thoughts about the story or activity.

“The effect of this, involving 10 lakh students and around 50,000 teachers can be imagined. It is our belief that the modern day problems like terrorism, corruption and pollution can be solved through schools and a human centric education.” – Manish Sisodia, Delhi Dy CM and Education Minister

Meditation in class:

Happiness Curriculum covered in Foreign media.

Entrepreneurship Mindset Curriculum for school students

EMC classes:

The Delhi Government launched the Entrepreneurship Mindset Curriculum in Feb 2019 in all government schools of NCT of Delhi for Classes IX to XII. 

This has been launched as a compulsory non-graded subject, comprising of a 40-minute class every day.

“This curriculum will solve the employment issues in the country and enable the schools in Delhi to become the best among the world. The country’s economy is not built by job seekers but by job providers.” – Manish Sisodia, Delhi Dy CM and Education Minister

Projects from Seed money:

From Oct 2019, all students of Class 11 and 12 are being given Rs 1,000 each as seed money to make use of the skills acquired in these classes.

The number of students to be covered by the program is 7.5 lakhs. About 7 Lakh students had benefited under the scheme till Dec 2019. (Source: Status Report of Outcome Budget: 2019-2020)

Some of the students’ success stories of the Entrepreneurship Mindset Curriculum:

  • A school student Kajal who made a company worth  ₹ 50 lakh from ₹ 50,000.
  • Story of students from Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya in West Vinod Nagar.

Live interactions with Entrepreneurs:

Live interaction between illustrious and diverse entrepreneurs and students of Entrepreneurship Mindset Curriculum are arranged by the AAP Delhi Government.

The Government plans to enrol 17,000 entrepreneurs as volunteers. In 2019, 4000 entrepreneurs had interacted with more than 3 lakh students and discussed their journey as entrepreneurs.

  • Nurturing Job Creators through experiential learning in the Entrepreneurship Mindset Curriculum (Classes 9 – 12), which reaches 8 lakh children every day
  • No. of Total Entrepreneur Interactions done: 2,695
  • No. of schools covered: 805
  • No. of students covered: 2,33,362  (Source: Page 37, DDC Performance Report, 2015-2019)
  • The guest speakers so far include the likes of 

Business Blasters programme for entrepreneurship amongst school students

The success of the 6-week pilot Seed Money Project at a Delhi Government School as part of the Entrepreneurship Mindset Curriculum extended into the Business Blasters Programme, launched on Sep 7, 2021. 

Involving 3 lakh students, 51,000 business ideas and 60 crore seed capital, Business Blasters is said to be the world’s largest start-up program. Launched as part of the Entrepreneurship Mindset Curriculum, students formed teams and transformed their initial seed money of Rs 2000/- each, into ventures, many of them already profitable. This phase now focuses on scalability.Read this Twitter thread by Manish Sisodia of the projects undertaken by several of the Business Blaster teams: https://twitter.com/msisodia/status/1435070066450599937

“We want to change the mindset of our young generation, encouraging them to be job providers rather than job seekers.” – Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi CM

1000 start-up ideas from government schools were shortlisted from among 51,000 for the second round of Delhi’s Business Blasters programme.

Short-listing of teams:

A masterclass was held for the shortlisted teams by Ritesh Malik of ‘Innov8 Co-working’ and Swati Bhargava of ‘CashKaro’ and ‘Earn Karo’.

The second round of Delhi government’s Business Blasters programme witnessed 1,000 shortlisted teams presenting their ideas in front of an expert panel comprising industrialists and members from universities of the national Capital.

The top 100 teams selected by the panel attended Investor Summit and Expo ’22 organised by Delhi government where their ideas were assessed by famous entrepreneurs and experts from universities.

Investor Summit and Expo ’22

Investor Summit and Expo ‘22 was held on Mar 5 2022 at Thyagaraj Stadium, South Delhi.

The Business Blasters exhibitors, comprising Delhi government school students, were provided with stalls to display and pitch their ideas to investors, many of whom guided the students on how they could improve on the product and others took their contact details to consider investing in their products.

Business Blasters – TV Show

Business Blasters has now become a live TV show where Delhi government students pitch their start-up ideas and get funding from entrepreneurs. 

Innovative ideas from student teams of Class 11 and 12 have brought forth valuable investment from entrepreneur judges. Biothene got 1,5 lakhs for their biodegradable plastic bag, while Mobisite that repairs mobile phones received Rs 50,000. The teams pitch their ideas to Education Minister, Manish Sisodia along with two judges from the industry, like Seema Bansal (Director, Boston Consulting Group) and Rajeev Saraf (Lepton Software CEO), to name a few.   

For more details, please visit

Deshbhakti Curriculum to instil patriotism

The AAP Delhi Government launched the Deshbhakti Curriculum on 28 September, 2021 on the occasion of the Freedom Fighter, Bhagat Singh’s birth anniversary.

This curriculum aims to make students into responsible citizens and  “true patriots”. 

“It will not just talk about patriotism, but inculcate a passion for it. It will not preach moral values. We will not expect students to memorise historical facts, but will expect them to introspect about their patriotism.” – Manish Sisodia, Delhi Deputy CM and Education Minister

The rationale behind this curriculum can be found in both the national and international education policy frameworks.

The curriculum is imparted from Nursery to Class 12 in the form of Handbooks (along the lines of the Happiness Curriculum and  the Entrepreneurship Curriculum) and the students are not to be graded.

The entire Deshbhakti Curriculum can be found here.

Deshbhakti themes are not only based on knowledge like history, but also values like honesty and humility as well promoting behaviours like standing up to injustice and scientific reasoning & mindset. 

Thus the learning outcomes of the framework include self-awareness, self-confidence, problem solving, collaboration, practising constitutional values, pluralism and diversity, environmental sustainability, ethical social behaviour, and social and civic responsibility.

Importance of Deshbhakti Curriculum:


To go along with the Deshbhakti Curriculum, a Deshbhakti Park was also set up at the Delhi Government School in Rohini. It displays the busts of various freedom fighters along with other exhibits.

An overwhelming majority of parents in a survey said that they approve of the Deshbhakti Curriculum.

Mentoring Programme on STEM and engineering careers for girl students

250 girl students studying Engineering at Indira Gandhi Delhi Technical University (IGDTUW) provided mentoring on STEM and engineering careers for 6 months to 1000 girls of Class 11, 12 from Delhi government schools in 2021.

The mentoring curriculum included various aspects of STEM – the available choices of courses in STEM, the entrance exams, the examination patterns, preparation needed for entrance exams, resources available for preparation, financial aid schemes of the government, how to deal with exam pressure and stress, time management, techniques for better focus etc.

UPSC Aspirations Series

In Dec 2020, the Delhi Government started a series of interactions between young IAS/IPS officers and UPSC aspirants from Delhi schools. The officers share their experiences, strategies and insights about exam preparation, which helps students in developing a better understanding.

In the first instalment, 60 students from classes IX-XII at Veer Savarkar Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya, Kalkaji interacted with the then Director of Education, Udit Prakash Rai.

(Source: Tweet by Jitendra Khalsa)

(Source: Tweet by Directorate of Education)

Link to all sessions:

Desh Ke Mentor programme to guide students on career choices

Started in September 2021, the Desh Ke Mentor programme is set to become India’s largest mentoring program.

The mentorship programme has actor and philanthropist Sonu Sood as its brand ambassador.

It aims to connect 3 lakh mentors from all over the country with 10 lakh Delhi Government school students (mentees), through a 10 min weekly career guidance.

Within a week of the launch of the programme in Oct 2021, over 12,000 youth had signed up to mentor kids studying in Delhi government schools.

By Jan 2022, the “Desh ke Mentor” program had 44000 mentors registered.

“Of the 44,000 mentors, 500 were IIT alumni, 500 from IIMs, 15,600 were youth from graduate to doctoral level courses in reputed institutions, while 7,500 were educated people in stable employment. The mentors counsel students about contemporary professions and job opportunities and guide them on taking the right career path. The mentors and the mentored connect over the phone once a week. All selected mentors have gone through psychometric tests and special training before being assigned to particular students. We have rejected more than 750 people who applied for the programme but failed the psychometric test.”  – Manish Sisodia, Delhi Dy CM and Education Minister

Atishi Marlena explains features of Desh Ke Mentor scheme and invites mentors

Virtual Mega Book-fair for Delhi Government school students

The first-ever virtual Mega book fair was organised for students of Delhi Government schools in Nov, 2021. 

Students & teachers now have access to 8000+ books by renowned publishers & writers.

Students and teachers will be able to place orders for desirable books from publishers online and these would be delivered to the schools.

“Suggestions were invited from teachers and students regarding the selection of books and only those were included in the libraries that would contribute to the positive development of kids. Now, a scrutiny committee decides whether the books by a publisher are good and useful for children and whether they are required in a library, and if they would help the students in pursuing their dreams. The committee decides whether the books are worth purchasing.” – Manish Sisodia, Delhi Dy CM and Education Minister

In 2021, the scrutiny committee has prepared a list of 8,000 books from 220 publishers. The Delhi government has allocated Rs 9 crore for 1,031 schools in Delhi.

Photography exhibition by Delhi Government school kids from slum areas

On 15/11/2021, Dy CM Manish Sisodia visited a photography exhibition by Delhi government school kids from the slums of Yamuna Khadar.

“Meet the star photographers from the slums of Yamuna Khadar. These children study in Delhi Govt School. Their parents work as labourers who cannot afford a camera, yet these children excel at photography. Special thanks to S Chandan & Arti Dogra for teaching them photography.” – Tweet by Manish Sisodia, Delhi Deputy CM and Education Minister

Love for Animals taught to Government school students

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) conducted Compassionate Citizen classes for students aged 8 to 12 years in Delhi Government schools on why they should love animals in Oct 2021.

The programme consists of a teacher’s guide, reproducible activity sheets — including a colouring sheet and a kindness pledge that children can sign — a full colour wall poster, an engaging 23-minute video, and an insert listing easy ways by which teachers and schools can encourage students to help animals.

‘Responsible use of Social Media’ – a month long session for school students

A month-long series of online sessions for 7 lakh Delhi Government school students were conducted in 1,040 schools from November 2020.

This was against the backdrop of increased usage of gadgets and exposure to social media during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Some of the topics covered were how much information to share online, how to deal with cyber threats, etc.

Self-defence training imparted to girl students of Government schools

14,500 girls students of Delhi government schools had been imparted training in self-defence upto Dec 2019. (Source: Pg.6, Status report of Outcome Budget 2019-2020)

Mass Legal Literacy Campaign (MLLC) started for legal awareness amongst students

Mass Legal Literacy Campaign ( MLLC) is a new initiative started in 2016 to impart basic legal awareness for students of classes 9-12.

As part of it, legal awareness sessions were conducted by the Delhi State Legal Services Authority (DLSA). Judges, lawyers and para legal volunteers visited at least 1000 government schools.

More Info

Business Blasters

Examples

Felicitation 

Three of the Business Blasters teams – Divine Creations, Techup, Mystique Dates were felicitated by EntrepreneurCafe.

Investor Summit and Expo ’22

Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/hashtag/BBExpo

Delhi Government school curricula in Private Educational Institutions

Manish Sisodia interacts with Private Educational institutions on 7th Mar 2022 at Thyagaraj Stadium to include Happiness Curriculum, Entrepreneurship Mindset Curriculum and DeshBhakti Curriculum in the Education Curriculum of private schools.

(Source: Hindustan Times)

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OT Editor