Parliamentary committee favours yoga in schools

At a time when Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Madhya Pradesh's 'surya namaskar' programmes has generated much controversy, a Parliamentary committee on Human Resource Development has favoured going all out to propagate yoga in schools.

"Yoga has been gaining immense popularity due to short term as well as long-term benefits that it provides. Yoga helps one to achieve all round development," the Parliamentary Standing Committee on HRD said in its report.

The report presented to Parliament last week said "the committee is of the opinion that yoga is one stream of education, which will make a permanent and positive impact on a student's life."

The 32-member committee headed by senior Congress leader Janardan Dwivedi and includes Rahul Gandhi and Brinda Karat (CPI-M) as its members said that considering the immense potential of this ancient knowledge of India that "yoga be made compulsory for all school going children in the country".

In its action taken report, the Ministry said the National Curriculum Framework for School Education-2005 prepared by the National Council of Educational Research and Training has made health and physical education as a compulsory subject from primary to secondary state.

The framework has put these subjects as an optional subject at higher secondary stage, it said adding yoga was one of the core components of health and physical education.