MP to introduce yoga period in schools to curb student suicides

Government schools in Madhya Pradesh will now have a period dedicated to yoga and the discipline will be part of the curriculum in these schools from the next academic session (2017-18). The state’s school department said the move is to counter the increasing number of student suicides.

“Until now education department asked teachers to teach yoga under the physical training period but now schools in the state will have a separate dedicated class for yoga. In some schools this class has already started but we will formally introduce it in the coming session. Our attempt is to de-stress students and help them in living a healthy and stable life,” said minister of state for education Deepak Joshi.

According to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) statistics, student suicides shot up by 240% in Madhya Pradesh between 2005 and 2014. This year too, from January until board exam results came out in May, more than 45 students committed suicide and more than 15 attempted to take their lives.

State crime records bureau (SCRB) indicates 625 students ended their lives in Madhya Pradesh in 2015.

Such figures compelled the state assembly to form a committee to look into the reasons for this kind of behaviour and suggest remedial measures. The committee formed during the budget session of the state assembly in April is yet to submit its report.

But the state education department decided to take matters into their hands.

After introducing a scheme called ‘Ruk Jana Nahi’ (‘Do Not Stop’) to provide a second chance to those who failed their board exams, the government made the appointment of counsellors mandatory for every school affiliated to the Madhya Pradesh Board of Secondary Education (MPBSE) from the next academic session.

And now to address stress related problems among students, state government run schools will have a period dedicated to yoga.

Teachers of all the state government schools are being trained at the state level yoga training centre in Bhopal.

“Right now teachers of Ujjain division are training at our centre. We train teachers for one month for before they are eligible to train students. Teachers of the entire state will be trained by February beginning,” said Praveen Jain, head of department at the centre.

Psychiatrist Dr Satyakant Trivedi told HT, “According to research, lifestyle modifications like yoga are very helpful for students. Globally many schools have adopted this and have dedicated sessions for yoga. It is a good move by state education department. The next effort they can take to help students is to hold workshops for parents and teachers so that they can identify stress and depression in children.”