The Concept of Green School in Bhutan for Holistic Education and Development

Green school as mentioned in Thakur S. Powdyel’s book My Green School: An Outline (2014) was developed to support the initiative ‘Educating for Gross National Happiness’, conceived in 2009 by the Ministry of Education, Bhutan. This is to realize the need for holistic development of individuals and for the fulfilment of the true purpose of education. However, the green school domain requires deeper understanding in correlation with the nine domains of Gross National Happiness philosophy to unsettle the hollowness and reductionism of modern education. Therefore, the paper attempts to explore how the process of holistic learning and wholesome education become the key to understand the principles of life, by analysing the concentric sense of the green school concept constituting eight dimensions represented as ‘Sherig Mandala’. The inherent meanings of the elements of greenery categorized as natural, social, cultural, intellectual, academic, aesthetic, spiritual and moral have been closely examined to revitalize the claims of education.

An Exploratory Study on the Measurement of the Levels of Happiness in Students in Educational Institutions

Happiness isn't always simply the state of being glad, it is also a nation of well-being and contentment. Happiness isn't always simply an outside expression of pleasure and bliss however inner contentment as nicely. Happiness, being an expression, is proven and felt and additionally because of human beings, activities and situations. We regularly ask others; Are you glad?, however have you ever requested yourself? Are you glad? This paper is an try and positioned to check the Gross National Happiness formulated with the aid of using the Bhutan state to degree happiness. This index measures the collective happiness, nicely-being, and inner and outside improvement in Bhutan. As a scholar, we are facing a plethora of feelings, nice and poor. But, due to the depth of workload, we discover it tasking to stand a number of poor feelings like pressure, fatigue, impatience, anger, frustration and occasionally even depression. This paper poses as an sincere try and try to seize the proper ranges of happiness we college students reading in academic establishments revel in and outcomes expressed in metrics.

Exploring the Origins of Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness

Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness (GNH) is often dismissed by its critics as being an instrument for policy elites to address ‘national security concerns’ that started to threaten their grasp on the state around the turn of the millennium. This study problematizes this line of criticism that relegates GNH to an ‘invented tradition’ of recent origin. For this purpose, this study draws on Roy Wagner’s notion of ‘invention’ that draws attention to how various sets of meanings are brought together. A historical analysis of the country’s development plans points to several origins of GNH, including ‘Buddhism and Bhutan’s traditional socio-economic system’ and ‘outside concepts’ holding sway in international debates on development. GNH has undergone a long and gradual process of elaboration in view of Buddhist mores and development discourses, while also taking into account national security concerns. This study concludes by warning against the reductionistic stance of GNH critics, in favour of a more balanced perspective that captures the multiplicity of the origins of GNH.

Exploring the ‘Partial Connections’ between Growth and Degrowth Debates: Bhutan’s Policy of Gross National Happiness

Debates on degrowth have emerged with the realisation that the existing growth-oriented economic order has infringed upon our biosphere’s limits and human wellbeing. This must be rectified in favour of a more sustainable and equitable order through the promotion of green, caring and communal economies, as pointed out by degrowth advocates. However, these advocates argue for abandoning economic growth as a policy objective, thereby missing an opportunity to heed the potential of forging ‘partial connections’ between growth-seeking and degrowth-oriented measures. To explore a remedy against this pitfall, this study examines Bhutan’s policy of Gross National Happiness (GNH), which downplays a growth-for-growth’s sake approach but avoids precluding the pursuit of growth, in line with the historical unfolding of the country’s development plans and its Buddhism-based mores. Although GNH is yet to elicit a structural shift towards a full-fledged post-growth society, its balanced stance aids the search for a clue on how best to promote a post-growth transition with an intricate combination of growth-seeking and degrowth-oriented measures. Despite this potential, GNH has been largely overlooked by degrowth advocates, who depart from their own principle of valuing ‘locally determined paths’. JEL: B59, 029

Happiness and the Quality of Government

This chapter uses happiness data to assess the quality of government. Our happiness data are drawn from the Gallup World Poll, starting in 2005 and extending to 2017 or 2018. In our analysis of the panel of more than 150 countries and generally over 1,500 national-level observations, we show that government delivery quality is significantly correlated with national happiness, but democratic quality is not. We also analyze other quality of government indicators. Confidence in government is correlated with happiness, however forms of democracy and government spending seem not. We further discuss three channels (including peace and conflict, trust, and inequality) whereby quality of government and happiness are linked. We finally summarize what has been learned about how government policies could be formed to improve citizens’ happiness.