“Happy Schools” Project in Vietnam
for happiness & wellbeing in Education.
Teachers from the first cohort in August 2018
Building on more than 20 years of educational work in Vietnam, Eurasia Foundation and its Eurasia Learning Institute for Happiness and Wellbeing (ELI), has the unique opportunity to create a country-wide impact on the educational system of Vietnam by implementing a learning program based on Mindfulness, Compassion, Social and Emotional Learning, first in Hue Province and then in in all the schools of the country. This pilot program started in 2018 is currently being implemented from Kindergarten to University. The training program will be centered around three main areas of development reflecting three areas of care: self care, care for others and society and care for the environment and the planet.
The three-year pilot programme will end with a Happy Schools Conference held in Hue in the Spring of 2021.
Self-care
Students develop their full potential through a holistic approach that fosters: learning to learn and learning to know (head, cognitive), learning to be (heart, socio-emotional), learning to do (hand, behavioral)
Care for others and society
Creating harmonious and meaningul relationships between teachers, students, parents, administration and the larger community – learning to live together (social skills)
Care for the environment and the planet
Living in harmony and taking care of the natural environment
Vietnam, after a long history of wars, destruction and other challenges, could become the first country worldwide to include these inner dimensions of education in its school system. Our team in Switzerland is currently reflecting about how to bring seeds and learnings back from Vietnam to implement the Happy Schools Programme in Switzerland.
Programme timeline
Phase 1: February to April 2018 - focus groups
After presenting the teacher training curriculum written by Ha Vinh Tho to the Vietnamese authorities, Hue University conducted focus groups with students, parents, teachers and school administrators. The DOET (department of Education and Training) selected 6 schools from Hue province to take part in the first year of the pilot programme.
phase 2: april 2018 - training of trainers
In April 2018, 40 trainers received training in The Peaceful Bamboo Family, Tinh Truc Gia (TTG), which was followed by weekly groups of practice until the August training of teachers.
phase 3: august 2018 Training of teachers
In August 2018, 120 participants joined the Happy Schools training in Hue.
Students from the Happy Schools Club in a Secondary School with Happy Schools project manager Hai Nguyen Phuoc.
The practice cards consolidated by the Happy Schools Team, from the practices done in-class by teachers and students involved in the first year. Drawings were made by children from the co-workers of The Peaceful Bamboo Family - TTG.
phase 4: August 2018 to april 2019 In-class implementation and evaluation of impact
Throughout the year, teachers in the six pilot schools received the ongoing support of the Happy Schools Team to implement the Programme in their classes and in-school. Happy Schools Clubs were created, and principal, teacher and student-led initiatives were created in each of the six schools.
Each school took the opportunity to visit The Peaceful Bamboo Family with students, where the youngsters living with disabilities taught them about their way of living and how to care for nature. This is part of the Empowerment Project.
phase 5: wrapping up the first year & adapting the training
At the end of the school year, the ELI team attended meetings with all stakeholders (DOET, each school, Hue University team) to collect stories & practices so as to work on a Version 2.0 of the training manual and training programme. This version 2.0 is thus adapted both to the context of Vietnam and Vietnamese schools. The Happy Schools Team also collected practices and stories into a Booklet, and created Practice cards (shown below). The Biti’s Marketing Team is supporting the Happy Schools Programme by making the visuals for the Booklet for instance.
Students from lower secondary school practicing a moment of mindfulness.
A student from Secondary School shows the bag she created and drew on. Students are creating their own tote bags so as to avoid buying plastic bags.
Video Materials
In the context of the Happy Schools Programme, the ELI team in Vietnam is working in collaboration with Biti’s shoe company’s marketing department in order to create video materials and ressources in Vietnamese. ELI has signed a 3-year MOU with Bitis and are working to create “Happy Bitis”.
Below are video materials created for the project :