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Yoga has been made compulsory in CBSE curricula for Classes XI and XII while for students of other classes it should be held at least twice a week as part of their physical activity programme, the government said on Tuesday.

Informing this in a written reply in Rajya Sabha, AYUSH Minister Shripad Yasso Naik said yoga education has also been made a compulsory part of study and practice by National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE).

The HRD Ministry has further informed that there are 15,962 schools affiliated to the CBSE which have already been advised to provide compulsory 40-45 minutes of physical activities or games to the students of Classes I-X every day and that students of Classes XI-XII should participate in physical activity for at least two periods per week .

Naik said that the board offers physical and health education for classes XI and XII and yoga is compulsory part of its curriculum. NCTE has already developed modules on yoga education for diploma in elementary education and master of education.

These will be used by more than 18,000 teacher education institutions and also 14 lakh student – teachers and teacher educators who are studying or teaching in these institutions, Naik said.

The Minister said that HRD Ministry has informed that the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2005 which is a policy document for the country, recommended Yoga as an integral part of health and physical education.

He said that the government has laid down the national policy on Indian Systems of Medicine and Homoeopathy-2002 which envisages overall growth and development of Yoga. The Government has formulated the programmes and operational measures for promotion of yoga through centrally sponsored scheme of National AYUSH Mission(NAM) and various central sector schemes.

Further,a task force has been constituted by the Ministry to deliberate and make recommendations on various important issues concerning the AYUSH Ministry,including the preferred option for promotion, development and regulation of Yoga and Naturopathy for education and practice, Naik said.