Teaching Mental Health: Evaluating India's Saharsh Curriculum?

The Saharsh curriculum is being implemented in grades 1-8 across Tripura (India) public schools in the 2023-2025 school years by Labhya in partnership with the government of Tripura. Labhya is an Indian education non-profit and in partnership with governments, Labhya co-creates and implements social-emotional learning and well-being curricula across public schools. Tripura’s social-emotional learning program, named ‘Saharsh’ is East and North East India’s first-ever curriculum dedicated to children’s well-being. The curriculum consists of daily Saharsh classes, where students engage in mindfulness, storytelling with open-ended discussions, and reflective conversations and activities designed to help students experience happiness. This study will evaluate the effectiveness of Saharsh 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.