Education News

Delhi Good start After facing flak for turning his back on the proposal for India (Delhi) hosting the 2014 Asian Games, Union youth and sports minister, Mani Shankar Aiyer has drafted a new national sports policy. The draft has been posted on the ministry’s website and suggestions are invited from the public before a comprehensive sports policy, likely to be legislated later this year, is finalised. The draft envisages physical and sports education as an integral component of school curriculums up to the higher secondary level. “This might be mandated through the national core curriculum with effect from the academic year 2010 to coincide with the hosting of the Commonwealth Games by India, thereby giving three years to all educational institutions to provide the required facilities, equipment and trained staff to meet the deadline and bequeathing the programme to future generations as a key legacy of the Commonwealth Games,” says the policy draft. About time too, because as per the latest Seventh All India Educational Survey with September 30, 2002 as the reference date, only 39 percent of primary, 57 percent of upper primary and 78 percent of secondary and higher secondary schools have playfields. In absolute numbers, out of 1.12 million schools in the country, only 48 percent have access to playfields (42.96 percent have their own and the remaining 5 percent have to access outside facilities). Playfields in usable condition are accessible in only 43 percent of schools, implying that between 1978 and 2002 access to playfields has actually reduced by 7 percent in primary, 9 percent in upper primary and 5 percent in secondary and higher secondary schools. The availability of other sports facilities like indoor halls, gymnasia, etc, is even less than of basic outdoor playfields. “Traditionally, we had a rich sports culture, but the formal education system didn’t encourage it. As a result respectability and acceptability of sports in society is very low. Schools hold the key to sports promotion and unless it is made a mandatory part of the curriculum, things won’t change. Such integration will help raise standards and improve chances of winning Olympic medals and create a healthy, unstressed, and balanced pool of young people,” says Dr. M.C. Paul, professor of sociology at Delhi’s showpiece Jawaharlal Nehru University who has long been associated with youth and sports policy planning programmes. The draft policy makes the shocking disclosure that 720 million of the 770 million Indians below age 35 have little/nil access to organised sports and games — clear proof that previous national sports policies (initiated in 1984) have failed to universalise sports education. The draft also highlights the abysmal budgetary support to sports education in India — a mere 0.073 percent of the current Union budget, the bulk of it for Commonwealth Games. “Youth development policies in this country have unfortunately steered clear of sports education. I hope the new policy will make sports education an integral component of primary and secondary school curriculums,” says Purva Ghosh of Pravah, a Delhi-based youth development organisation.…