Socio-emotional Learning in India
– By Mansi Dhata and Swati Kumari
The intent of education is not limited to sharing information with children, but rather, to develop critical skills that enable character growth, and provide them with the resources to solve problems and deal with their life constructively. “Socio-Emotional Learning (SEL) is the process through which children and adults understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions” . SEL is a term that can be understood through many different perspectives and lenses, however, in any case, its importance for adolescents cannot be denied. A glimpse of this multitude of definitions can be found within the “Explore SEL” dashboard, which has documented more than 40 frameworks used across the globe to measure and promote SEL skills. The myriad frameworks and conflicting descriptions of similar terminology and skills can make navigating the world of social-emotional learning extremely time-consuming and complicated. The most widely used frameworks include the CASEL Framework (that identifies 5 core competencies for the child including self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision making), OECD Framework for the Study on Social and Emotional Skills, the skills in this framework are arranged hierarchically, with six broad skill categories and the framework includes “compound” skills that represent combinations of two or more individual skills.
Read more in this piece on the momentum around social-emotional learning, not just being driven at the national level, but also actively prioritised by the state education departments.
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Mansi Dhata is part of the foundations team in Delhi, where she engages with corporates and foundations on strategy development, programme design, and implementation. In her time at Sattva, she has worked with a multi-national organisation in conceptualising, co-creating and re-designing their fellowship programme impacting over a million people in India. She has also worked on a large scale entrepreneurship project and has experience in partner due diligence, on-ground implementation and project management.
Swati Kumari is a Senior Engagement Manager at Sattva, building pilot and large-scale solutions that bring together foundations, civil society organisations and the government. With an extensive on-ground experience across Education (government advocacy, whole child development), Livelihoods (skill, entrepreneurship, value chain development) and Gender (creating women focussed solutions in rural markets, capability building and addressing VAW), Swati works with organisations to deliver sustainable impact.
Sattva has been working with various corporates, non-profits and social organisations to help them define their social impact goals. Our focus is to solve critical problems and find scalable solutions. We assist organisations in formulating their long-term social impact strategy by strategically aligning with business to provide meaningful solutions to social issues.
If you have any inputs, comments or suggestions, please write to us: impact@sattva.co.in
