UP Board to widen existing yoga syllabus for over one crore students of classes 9 to 12

Allahabad, Hindustan Times | ByK Sandeep Kumar, Allahabad

Apr 13, 2017 01:40 PM IST

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The new syllabus of yoga is expected to be implemented in 2017 academic session.

The existing yoga syllabus is set to widen for students of classes 9 to 12 enrolled in over 25,000 schools affiliated to the UP Board of Secondary Education across 75 districts of the state.

At present, yoga is part of moral studies, sports and physical education, which is mandatory for students of classes 9 to 12 in all schools affiliated to the UP Board.(File Photo)

The new syllabus of yoga is expected to be implemented from the new session set to begin from July 2017.

Shail Yadav, secretary, UP board of secondary education, said: “We have sent a proposal to the state government for expanding the study of yoga further for students of classes 9 to 12. We have also convened a meeting of our course curriculum committee to discuss the finer points of the initiative at our headquarters on April 18.”

The move comes on the heels of the Yogi Adityanath government having decided to make yoga part of the curriculum for students of classes 5 to 12.

At present, yoga is part of moral studies, sports and physical education paper which is mandatory for students of classes 9 to 12 in all schools affiliated to the UP Board. The compulsory paper is worth 50 marks. Out of this, six marks are fixed for yoga for students of classes 9 and 10. For students of classes 11 and 12, yoga is worth 5 marks.

IMPACT ON SCHOOLS

The UP Board’s decision on widening the scope of study of Yoga for class 9 to class 12 will impact over 1 crore students studying in over 25,000 schools affiliated to it. These include 2,152 government schools, 4,535 government aided secondary schools as well as 19,209 unaided schools of Uttar Pradesh

The marks obtained in this paper are not added to the overall result. The UP Board plans to increase the importance of yoga for these classes by making it worth 20 marks.

Under the new plan, yoga will become more important than moral studies as well as sports and physical education which will be worth 15 marks each for this 50- mark paper. The paper’s name too will now be changed from ‘moral, sports and physical education studies’ to ‘moral, yoga, sports and physical education studies’.

The existing yoga studies are limited to a few yoga asanas, including Mayur asan, shirish asan and kapal bhati for students of class 10 and surya namaskar, padmasan, swargasan, halasan, bhujangasan etc and their effect on the body for class 12 students.

For designing a wider course curriculum, the UP Board has sought the help of yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s Haridwar-headquartered Patanjali Yogpeeth as well as other experts. They have been requested to suggest topics that should be included in the yoga curriculum.

“The study of yoga is important for the society. Students will be able to not only remain fit but also learn the art of leading a well balanced life through this initiative,” said Anoop Kumar Srivastava, lecturer, physical education,at CAV Inter College, Allahabad.