CBSE's new guidelines direct schools to have mandatory 'sports period' every day to prevent students from turning into couch potatoes

NEW DELHI: The CBSE has formulated new guidelines for its schools mandating them to have a daily sports period so as to prevent students from having a sedentary lifestyle and turning into couch potatoes.

The board has prepared a 150-page manual detailing sports guidelines for schools for classes 9 to 12 and methodologies for implementing them.

According to the new guidelines aimed at mainstreaming health and physical education, it will be mandatory for schools to have a "sports" period daily during which students will have to go the playground but will be free to perform any physical activity listed in the manual and will be graded on the same.

"Health is often a state of physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Hence, we have decided to mainstream health and physical education for class 9 to 12 with the aim of preventing them from having a sedentary lifestyle or turn into couch potatoes," a senior CBSE official told PTI.

The board had last month asked all schools to reserve one period for "Health and Physical Education (HPE)" while preparing their time-table for the 2018-19 session.

However, HPE will be different from Physical Education (PE) academic elective which is offered to class 10 and 12 students.

"Earlier, there used to be two co-scholastic areas-- Health and Physical Education and Work Education. Now the two have been merged and the total periods allocated for the two will be used for HPE. This will ensure that schools are under no pressure of adjusting the time tables at the cost of academic subjects," the official said.

"The whole process of HPE will be school-based and will be evaluated and implemented by school teachers only. The marks or grades will have to be submitted by schools on the CBSE website," the official added.

While participation in HPE and assessment will be mandatory to be eligible for appearing in board exams of class 10 and 12, the marks will not be added in the final exams.

Schools will also not be required to have only Physical Education teachers for conducting the period.

"Every teacher including class teacher, teaching in CBSE affiliated schools will be eligible for implementing, evaluating and record keeping of HPE which will be completely practical and will not have any theory portion," the CBSE official said.

"The students will also have to do a project for which they can choose whether it will be an individual or group activity. From doing any cleanliness campaign to visiting a zoo, the project can be anything which involves an outdoor activity. Students will be graded for the pictures and other they material submit for the project," the official added.