Maken's new proposal to give marks to students for fitness

Currently marks and grades are linked to academic performance, but the new proposal seeks to give some weightage to physical fitness in schools all over the country.

While unveiling the exposure draft on National Physical Fitness Programme (NPFP), which is at a discussion stage, Maken said in order to ensure fitness among all school children, a system needs to be put in place that would assess and ascertain a child's physical fitness from class V onwards.

Stating that the scheme needs to be motivational rather than coercive, Maken said, "The achievement of fitness by a child has to be rewarded in a manner similar to reward for academic achievement."

According to the proposed draft, the top 10 percentage of gender wise performers shall be given an additional 3 per cent to the percentage obtained by him/her in academic disciplines.

Subsequently, performers between top 10 to 20 percentage will get additional 2.5 per cent, performers between 20 to 30 percentage will get 2 per cent, between 30 to 40 percentage will get 1.5 per cent and between 40 to 50 percentage will get additional 1 per cent weightage in their marking, which may be converted into grades as per prevalent norms.

"The aim is to bring about a change in the attitude among not only the children but general public. The programme can bring about a cultural change," said Maken.

The student's performance would be graded and fed into the child's 'Assessment Card' and the school's 'Fitness Assessment Forms' as designed by the Lakshmibai National University for Physical Education (LNUPE), Gwalior.