Neelu Vyas, New Delhi: Some good news for the kids in school. For the basic illnesses parents need not take them to the doctor but they can be screened in school.

An initiative by the union health and the HRD ministry has come as happy tiding during Diwali.

It's a Diwali gift for schoolchildren across the country, from the health and the HRD ministries. A national school health program, under which all school children from class five to twelve will be screened for basic ailments, will take off next year.

The ministries say children in private and public schools will be screened regularly - free of cost - for vitamin deficiencies, heart ailments, cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes, among other ailments.

Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss says, "School children all over the country will be screened. Yearly they will be given health card. This will be a yearly phenomenon."

The program will be implemented under a public private partnership, but the details, like how often the screenings will be done, are yet to be worked out.

The ministries say child health is a priority, and have also declared that health will be taught as a separate subject in schools from next year.

Ramadoss adds, "Health subject is going to be at least once or twice a week. All the children in the school should learn what are the health issues."

This program is already there in states of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat but replicating it across the country would not be an easy task as experts say that enforcement, infrastructure and capacity building would be the major challenges.