Delhi to reduce main syllabus to add yoga, music: Deputy CM

Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Monday said his government was trying to reduce the main syllabus by 25 percent and replace it with "courses of life" including yoga, music and sports.

Speaking at the inauguration of the National Conference for Yoga Teachers here, Sisodia, who also holds the education portfolio, said: "The things which are essential for living, we term them as extra-curricular and those that are optional are taught as main curriculum."

He said life was incomplete without learning yoga, sports and music but was not so if one does not study subjects like English, physics and mathematics.

"If you give me freedom, I can work and cut down the main curriculum by 50 percent. But to begin with, I have constituted a team in the Delhi education department and have requested them to reduce the main syllabus by 25 percent this year...," he said.

"If its not possible in all schools, we will do it in some schools as a pilot project."

The minister said the reduced syllabus would be replaced with courses of life like yoga, music and sports.

"When we introduce it this year, I request the central government to mark these subjects as well and consider as main course," he said.

The event also saw the launch of the syllabus and course material for classes six to 10 prepared by the National Council of Educational Research and Training and the training module for the teacher education programme prepared by the National Council of Teacher Education.

Sisodia also said the yoga syllabus launched by Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani would be implemented, completely or partially, in Delhi schools from this session itself.

He also extended all cooperation by the Delhi government to the central and other state governments in taking yoga forward, and added that 200 Delhi government school yoga teachers were participating in the two-day conference.

The conference on the theme 'Yoga - Principles and Practice in our education system' will discuss topics like yoga for holistic development, yoga for needs of special children, yoga and stress management, yoga in curriculum and best practices in yoga teaching.

Later, Sisodia in a tweet requested Irani to remove the no detention policy till Class 8. "It is due to this that education upto Class 8 has been suffering," he said.