Express News Service By

NEW DELHI: Yoga is set to be included in the National Eligibility Test (NET), with the University Grants Commission (UGC) on Friday clearing a proposal in this regard. In its full commission meeting, the UGC accepted the recommendation of a panel which had earlier this year suggested making yoga a subject in the NET exami-nation.

The panel headed by headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s yoga guru H R Nagenddra had recommended inclusion of yoga in NET to make it a more attractive career option for prospective teachers. NET is an eligibility test for college and university teachers.

Yoga has gained importance ever since the NDA government came to power in 2014. Since then, it has been introduced as a subject in school and university curricula and as also made it to the syllabi of IITs.

The panel had also pitched for enrolling experts from institutes such as Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali Yogpeeth as guest lecturers at various universities, and paying them in accordance with the salary norms of the UGC. While yoga is currently taught at 52 institutions across the country, about 16 offer an MA degree in the discipline.

“Post-graduates in yoga have been unable to get teaching jobs now because there was no NET conducted for yoga,” an official pointed out.