New Delhi: In a bid to encourage international students to learn Yoga, Human Resource Development Ministry has planned to introduce training courses under the Modi government’s ambitious ‘Study in India’ programme.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the ‘Study in India’ campaign in her maiden budget speech. The campaign focuses on bringing international students to study in the top ranking higher educational institutions in India. It provides for supernumerary seats for meritorious international students.
In India, foreign students are admitted in institutes only through the supernumerary seat quota of 15%. This means that regular quota of seats for Indian students won't be affected at all.
“The government has planned to have short-term courses in the Yoga institutions in association with the AYUSH Ministry for the students applying under the campaign,” said an official in the HRD Ministry. The programme will be pursued further with the institutions under the Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopat, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy.
Over 70,000 students across 190 countries have already applied for admissions in these seats for 2019-20 academic year. With the help of the campaign, the government expects a quantum jump in the number of international students in the country.
This is one of the many initiatives that the Modi government has taken to promote Yoga. In the Parliament, HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal – ‘Nishank’ has also described other ways in which his Ministry is working towards encouraging Yoga.
Apart from the Study in India Yoga training courses in association with AYUSH, there are other programmes of Yoga as approved by University Grants Commission (UGC). The UGC has approved the establishment of an Inter University Centre-Yogic Science at Bengaluru and introduced Yoga as a new National Eligibility Test (NET) subject from January 2017 UGC-NET onwards. Further, in order to promote it in the country, Yoga Departments have been established in nine central universities.
Education is a subject in the concurrent list of the Constitution and majority of schools are under the jurisdiction of the state/union territory governments and it is for the respective state/union territory government to take a decision regarding the inclusion of Yoga in the teaching curriculum for their schools.
In school education, the CBSE has made Health and Physical Education compulsory in all classes from I-XII for its affiliated schools. The schools have been advised that health and physical education must include three areas - health education, physical education and yoga. Besides this, the National Curriculum Framework (NCF), 2005, recognised Yoga as an integral part of health and physical education.
The NCERT organises Yoga Olympiad across India at various levels where schools from states and UTs, Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS), Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS) and CBSE schools take part in the Yoga Olympiad.
The government has also set up a Yoga Certification Board (YCB) to standardise and strengthen Yoga training by providing certification to individuals and accreditation to Institutions.
Comments
0 comment