The National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) plans to introduce a programme to assess and certify skilled yoga instructors to meet the demands for them in schools, with the government making the ancient form of physical exercises an integral part of school curriculum.
The teacher education regulator is also considering a proposal to design a crash course of yoga and ask recognised training institutes to offer it to existing teachers in schools so they can acquire the skills in a short time.
These suggestions came up at a national meeting at Swami Vivekananda yoga Anusandhana Sansthana University in Bengaluru last month to develop a “plan of action” for implementation of yoga education in teacher education programmes. The meeting was attended by more than 120 delegates, including deans and heads of the Departments of Education of various universities as well as directors of various state councils of educational research and training (SCERTs).
“We are working on it. We have skilled yoga teachers in the country but that will not fulfil the demand. The idea behind the suggestions for introduction of a certification programme and crash course is to create a quality work force. This will also open up employment opportunities for many yoga instructors,” official sources in the NCTE told Deccan Herald. The NCTE will consult experts to determine what the structure and duration of the proposed crash course, along with provisions for assessment and certification of available yoga instructors. It will also soon start creation of a national database of yoga instructors.
Yoga education was made compulsory in the new NCTE Regulations 2014 and the revised norms and standards of 15 teacher education programmes introduced by it recently.
Published 20 September 2015, 19:52 IST