Social emotional learning should be included in curriculum: Experts

Nagpur: Looking at the changing lifestyle of urban India, experts feel it has become necessary to include social and emotional learning as a subject in the curriculum to ensure overall grooming of the new generation. A national conference of experts from teaching and psychology stressed on the need to include Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in the syllabus of schools and colleges.The conference was held at Vanamati Hall on Saturday.
Rajya Sabha MP Dr Vikas Matatme took lead in organizing the event in city. “Recent data shows that 24% of the Indians between 15 and 29 years of age are suffering from depression. Stress is leading our youths towards addiction, anti-social behaviour, and ultimately towards suicides,” said Dr Mahatme.
“This year’s theme — Beyond IQ — aims to create emotionally intelligent teachers to tackle the emotional quotient of kids,” he added.
A national-level research on Indian Social and Emotional Learning Framework (ISELF) was launched on the occasion. This comprehensive study will be available for free to schools across the country from the next academic session. Schools may get benefited through the outcomes and solutions provided in it. This research is done by the members of The Teachers Foundation.
“Parents today have conflicting expectations from schools. They want schools to balance academic as well as artistic capabilities, marks and understanding, discipline as well as sensibility of kids. Our research aims at emotional development of children from 6 to 18 years. We have developed a careful age-bounded approach for this,” said Maya Menon from The Teachers Foundation.
Earlier, Mayor Nanda Jichkar, senior social worker Girish Gandhi and educationist Sunil Raisoni inaugurated the event. Girish Gandhi said that the loss of family values and structure has resulted in emotional breakdown of young generation.
“The new generation is intelligent but unfortunate. You don’t get grandparents to teach you the values and the way of living. I hope this new initiative would bring some positive change to youngsters’ lives,” he said.
The daylong conference saw a talk on ‘What Education Could be’ by motivational speaker Vivek Atray and a talk on ‘Project Happiness’, a pilot project by two students to increase ‘happiness quotient’ of students learning in government schools.