DU plans courses on art of being happy, emotional intelligence from this academic year

New Delhi: The Delhi University will start value-addition courses on topics like emotional intelligence, the art of being happy and Indian fiction from the 2022-23 academic year as part of the Undergraduate Curriculum Framework-2022 (UGCF).

A resolution to introduce 24 similar courses aimed at developing critical thinking has been approved in a recently held DU academic council meeting. Now the matter will be presented to the highest decision-making body of the university, its executive council.

Students can take one or more such value-addition courses per semester.

Some of these courses are Emotional Intelligence, Art of Being Happy, Financial Literary and Ethics, Vedic Mathematics and Value of Indian Tradition System. These courses have been prepared by the value addition course committee headed by professor Niranjan Kumar.

"The value addition courses have been designed keeping in mind the National Education Policy 2022. They have various components like critical thinking, compassion, teamwork, scientific temperament, Indian knowledge systems, ethical, cultural and constitutional values, and creative writing," Kumar told PTI.

"This is the first time a prestigious university like the DU has introduced such courses. They will act as a game-changer in terms of social-building," he added.

Credits gained through these courses will be added to the student's Academic Bank of Credits.

Among the courses are those inspired by prominent campaigns initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi such as Fit India and Swacch Bharat.

Under the Art of Being Happy, students will be taught ways to cope with stress, the physiological and hormonal basis of happiness, factors of happiness and interpersonal relationship towards self-actualisation. It will be a two-credit course.

In the Emotional Intelligence course, students will gain insights into establishing positive relationships and discover personal competence and technique for building emotional intelligence, self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management.

The university will also introduce a course to acquaint students with Indian fiction in English and analyse novels critically and in the context of their own lived situations.

Through this course, students will learn about the understanding of Indian ethos and values through Indian fiction, develop creative thinking through the reading of fiction and realise the potential of fiction in bringing out social and cultural change.

However, several teachers at the university are of the view that value-addition courses under the Undergraduate Curriculum Framework (UGCF) will "discourage critical thinking". Seven academic council members issued a dissent note during the August 3 meeting.

According to the dissenting members, these courses pay a lip service to the question of intellectual attitudes that need to be fostered in students, and also undermine the idea of India as a cosmopolitan site of cultural and philosophical interaction between people, languages and traditions.

"The myopic conception of VAC rubric is evidently an outcome of a centralised initiative that has excluded participation of teachers from all subjects. Hence, many disciplines have not found any representation," the teachers said in a statement.