Yoga to be taught in Central schools

NEW DELHI: After creating two world records in yoga practice, the government today moved to introduce yoga in school curricula and launch modules for training of yoga teachers. Yoga will now be available as a subject in Classes 6-10 in Central schools such as Kendriya Vidyalayas and Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas, while the CBSE will also work actively to find ways of introducing yoga in the 18,000 schools affiliated to it.

HRD Minister Smriti Irani is welcomed by a girl with a yogasana at the Rashtriya Yoga Shikshak Sammelan in New Delhi. PTI

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 22

After creating two world records in yoga practice, the government today moved to introduce yoga in school curricula and launch modules for training of yoga teachers.

Yoga will now be available as a subject in Classes 6-10 in Central schools such as Kendriya Vidyalayas and Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas, while the CBSE will also work actively to find ways of introducing yoga in the 18,000 schools affiliated to it.

Asked if the subject will be compulsory, HRD Minister Smriti Irani said the decision was up to the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan and Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti to take. The point is she as the minister in charge heads both.

Releasing yoga school curriculum developed by NCERT and yoga module for teacher training developed by the National Council for Teaching Education (NCTE) today in the Capital, Irani said: "We have decided that 80% yoga subject marking will be based on practicals and only 20% on theory. Children must practise yoga sincerely."

She was speaking at the inauguration of the Rashtriya Yoga Shikshak Sammelan being organised by the HRD Ministry and CBSE and attended by nearly 500 school yoga instructors from India.

She said the state governments would be free to adopt yoga curricula in their schools. Amid confusion over whether yoga would be compulsory for Central schoolchildren, sources in the HRD Ministry said one of the three periods of physical activity every week in Central schools would have to be devoted to yoga.

Irani said NCTE had developed yoga training module for teachers to create a pool of yoga instructors.

To further popularise yoga among students, Irani announced an annual yoga contest from 2016 and its winner will get Rs 5 lakh.

The NCERT is learnt to have designed the yoga curriculum with the help of yoga guru Swami Atmapriyanand of the Vivekananda University at Belur Math. He was present at the launch today and had yesterday.

Calls for introducing yoga in school curricula are not new. Former Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss during the first Congress-led UPA regime had written to the HRD Ministry to make yoga part of school syllabus.

The Congress, however, did not approve the move. The party's media head Randeep Surjewala today said: "The best way to teach young minds is to encourage them not coerce."