Yoga, sports made mandatory in Raj govt schools

Jaipur: The state education department has made yoga and sports classes mandatory in govt schools for the holistic development of students. As a pilot project, the initiative has been started in over 170 PM-SHRI schools across seven districts. Thirty-five schools have been selected in Jaipur, 30 in Udaipur, 29 in Jodhpur, 24 in Ajmer, 22 in Bharatpur, 17 in Bikaner, and 14 in Kota district for the project.

Earlier, these activities were undertaken only on Saturdays as part of the ‘No Bag Day' initiative. Now, on the last Saturday of every month, a sports meet will be organised in schools to identify those who are good in various sports so that they can be trained for school-level or inter-school competitions, said officials.

There will be three yoga periods per week for classes 1 to 5, two for 6 to 8, and one for 9 to 12. Physical education teachers with one-year experience as a yoga instructor will be recruited by the department in each district. Every school will be given Rs 1 lakh for 10 months for this initiative. Appointment of such teachers will be supervised by school management committees.

"Physical education teachers working in schools will contribute not only to sports but also to yoga, mental health, moral education, and life skill development. They will also have to implement the ‘One District, One Sports' campaign," a senior official said.

This year on International Yoga Day, the department also selected one student from every school as a yoga ambassador to encourage other students and teachers to practise yoga throughout the year. Around 65,000 students were selected as yoga ambassadors across the state.