In a bid to promote sports in the country, Union Sports Minister, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore announced that a games period will be made mandatory in schools after reducing the syllabus by 50 percent by next year. In this way, the students can concentrate on sports.
“We have come to a stage where sports is not a part of education, but itself an education. The Education Ministry is ensuring that the school syllabus will be reduced by 50 per cent from 2019 onwards along with inducting sports period on a regular basis,” the Union Sports Minister proudly announced.
As per the National Curriculum Framework (NCF), 2005, Health and Physical Education is a compulsory subject from classes 1 to 10 and an optional subject at the Higher Secondary level. The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has developed some set rules on Health and Physical Education, which outlines class-wise games and sports for students. Even, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) affiliated schools have been advised to allocate 40-45 minutes of physical activities and games for students of Classes 1 to 10 every day and at least two periods per week (90 to 120 minutes) for students of Classes 11 to 12.
However, the question arises as to whether this reduction in school-syllabus shall hinder the quality education among students in India. To this the Sports Minister replied, “This year we will have 20 specialised sports schools and the government of India will pump about Rs 7-10 crore each. The idea is to have a very pointed approach so each school will have only two or three main sports. They will be very focused,” he said.
