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Dr. Bhola Shanker Dabral
Himalayan Meditation Institute
Ram Nagar, Rishikesh, India
ORCID id – https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0214-4310
Abstract— Schools worldwide are under growing pressure to address not only academic outcomes but also the physical fitness, emotional regulation, and psychosocial well-being of students. Yoga, a low-cost, low-equipment practice combining physical postures, breath regulation, and meditative attention, has attracted sustained research interest as a feasible school-based intervention capable of addressing this broader mandate. This paper reviews peer-reviewed evidence on the integration of yoga into school education, drawing on systematic reviews, scoping reviews, and randomized controlled trials published between 2012 and 2023, alongside India’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which explicitly mandates the inclusion of yoga in school curricula. The review finds that school-based yoga programs are associated with improvements in attention, executive function, emotional regulation, anxiety and stress reduction, and, in several studies, academic engagement and performance, although the evidence base continues to be constrained by small sample sizes, inconsistent intervention protocols, and a shortage of high-quality randomized designs. The paper further examines the policy context in India, where NEP 2020 positions yoga as a core component of holistic, multidisciplinary education from the foundational stage onward, and considers the practical, curricular, and teacher-training challenges that accompany this policy ambition. The paper concludes that yoga integration in schools holds considerable promise as a scalable well-being intervention, but that its educational value depends on standardized program design, trained instructors, and rigorous evaluation embedded within the school system rather than treated as an occasional extracurricular activity.
Keywords— Yoga, school education, holistic development, student well-being, NEP 2020, physical education, mental health, curriculum integration
References
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