— Rahul Mehra is National Representative of India, UNESCO Chair for Global Health & Education and Chairman, Tarang Health Alliance

We need comprehensive health education because it infuses lifelong health habits. Children’s poor physical and mental health is a major roadblock to achieving the vision of Viksit Bharat

Commendably, the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) have included ‘Physical Education (PE) & Well-being’ as a curriculum focus area in the preparatory, middle and secondary schooling stages i.e, from classes III-XII.

This is commendable because physical education teaches students how to become — and remain — physically active and healthy. Well-being is the combination of physical, mental and social health. Although it is not expressly stated in the NCF document, it is safe to conclude that the goal of ‘PE & Well-being’ in school curriculums is to enable students to acquire the knowledge and skills/behaviour to become physically, mentally and socially healthy.

NCF states that new textbooks will be developed for this curriculum area, and that books for classes III and VI have already been printed. One hundred hours per academic year have been allocated for classes III-VIII and 90 hours for classes IX-XII for PE and wellbeing education.

This is a major step forward for the Indian education system and if well executed, will result in valuable long-term investment in health of the nation.

Curriculum needs improvement. To determine which health topics have been covered in the curriculum, Tarang Health Alliance reviewed the Physical education & Well-being books titled Khel Yatra and Curiosity science textbook. These are the only officially approved books on PE & Well-being in print.

Khel Yatra. This textbook focuses primarily on physical activity and Yoga practices. Physical education in schools normally translates into children playing sports or doing physical exercises. When properly executed, these activities can teach students positive social behaviour such as teamwork and effective communication, but not all social behaviours. Developing other important social behaviour e.g, healthy relationships, abjuring violence etc, is not addressed in this book. Moreover, the book is not sensitive to the fact that many schools don’t have playgrounds.

Yoga is normally practiced in schools by students conducting asanas. These are very good for physical health and improving certain aspects of mental health e.g, developing focus and concentration. However, other important aspects of mental health e.g, goals setting, creativity, decision making, managing stress etc, are not addressed. Teaching PE and Yoga are unlikely to improve overall well-being, which is the prime objective of NEP 2020 and NCF.

Curiosity. The main subject covered in this science text is nutrition. It focuses primarily on knowledge about components of food items and vitamins/minerals in various fruits and vegetables. The focus on health knowledge stems from requiring students to regurgitate facts and pass exams. The curriculum does not teach students what constitutes a daily balanced diet and how to develop that know-how by repeated practice. The goal of this book should have been to also teach students how to plan and sustain healthy daily diets.

Recommendations for improving the curriculum. To realise the goal of “students acquiring the knowledge and skills/behaviour to develop good physical, mental and social health”, the following material should be included in the curriculum and textbooks for classes III-XII.

Mental & social health. The focus areas of PE and Yoga need to be complemented by addressing mental and social health issues. Mental health and overall well-being requires developing self-esteem, values, management of stress and emotions, creativity, goal setting, decision making, empathy etc. Social health should cover communication, healthy relationships, collaboration, violence prevention etc.

Physical health. Students should be taught about the dangers of tobacco, alcohol/drug abuse and about air pollution, reproductive health, auditory/vision/dental health, first aid etc. These issues are listed in NEP 2020 but are ignored or inadequately covered in these textbooks.

During the past year, I met with several officials from the Department of School Education and Literacy and NCERT to advocate a separate health education policy and discuss the necessity for a comprehensive health curriculum in schools. Among the officials I met were the Secretary of the Dept. of School Education. At NCERT, I met the Director and other officials. The recommendations listed above have been shared with them. There is still an opportunity to improve the content of the prescribed textbooks for preparatory, middle and secondary schools, which have not yet been printed.

We need comprehensive health education in schools to infuse lifelong health habits, and improve the learning outcomes of children. India has very high prevalence of lifestyle and infectious diseases. One in three adults has high blood pressure and one in four is diabetic or pre-diabetic. Mental health problems of youth and adults are increasing rapidly resulting in poor quality of life and hampering our economic development.

For India, children’s poor physical and mental health is a major roadblock to achieving the goals of Viksit Bharat and $30 trillion GDP by 2047.