Teaching Mental Health: Evaluating India's Happiness Curriculum?

The Saharsh happiness curriculum will be implemented in grades 1-8 across Tripura (India) public schools in the 2023-2024 school year. The curriculum consists of daily happiness classes, where students engage in mindfulness, storytelling with open-ended discussions, and reflective conversations and activities designed to help students experience happiness. This study would be the first to evaluate the effectiveness of a happiness curriculum — an intervention with much interest from education policymakers — exploring its impact on student mental health, wellness, academic achievement, grit, self-control, and social networks. Further, this study will compare the benefits of the curriculum to the opportunity cost of reduced learning time, explore its mechanisms, and evaluate the impact of teacher buy-in, comprehension, and teacher mental health. In doing so, we seek to assess the value of one of the largest non-cognitive skills and socioemotional learning initiatives in the world, and its potential as a driver of improved youth mental health.