Sports & Music Education Revival

Another welcome development in K-12 education in the new millennium is an emerging consensus that extra-curricular education ” sports and music ” is an intrinsic and important component of the education experience of children BIB-BANG HIGH POTENTIAL initiatives such as curriculum enrichment and cognitive development programmes apart, another overdue and welcome development in K-12 education in the new millennium is an emerging consensus within civic society that extra-curricular ” especially sports ” education is an intrinsic and important component of the education experience of children. The clich©d dictum mens sana in corpore sano (a healthy mind requires a healthy body) given lip service on every school™s sports day, has acquired new currency and its import is resonating with parents and the academic communities. With the media headlining alarming reports of child obesity and lifestyle diseases such as diabetes afflicting teens, middle class households are becoming increasingly aware of the need for sports education and participation. Moreover, reports of youth from underprivileged households striking it rich in professional sports, particularly cricket, have enthused even bottom-of-the-pyramid parents about the importance of sports education. This awakening has prompted several visionary edupreneurs such as the IIT-Bombay and IIM-Bangalore alum Saumil Mazmudar (EduSports), former banker Dev Roy (FitKids), former India Davis Cup star and winner of several tennis grand slam doubles championships Mahesh Bhupathi (Mahesh Bhupathi Tennis Academy) and India test cricket star Virendra Sehwag (Sehwag International School, Jhajhar, Haryana), among others to promote sports academies which provide globally-benchmarked sports and fitness education to a fast-growing number of enthusiastic children and youth countrywide. œWhile working as a banking and finance professional in the US and UK for 13 years, I learned that the differentiator which determined better employees was extra-curricular, especially sports education which teaches individuals to cooperate and work effectively in teams. When I returned to India in 2009 as an experienced triathlete, I found that my son had very limited sports options. This prompted me to promote FitKids Education, says Dev Roy, the superbly fit promoter-chief executive of the Bangalore-based FitKids Education and Training Pvt. Ltd, whose comprehensive menu of 4,000  Leapstart sports and fitness programmes developed in conjunction with the US-based SPARK (Sports, Play and Active Recreation for Kids), is toning up 130,000 children in 150 K-12 schools countrywide. An engineering and business management alumnus of the R.V. College of Engineering, Bangalore and Chicago University, Roy acquired valuable experience working with IBM, Bank of America, Dresdner Bank and Barclays Capital in the US and UK, before he œtook a leap of faith and returned to his hometown to promote FitKids Education in 2009. In 2012, the company also introduced its GAIT (Grooming Artistic Innovation and Talent) programme which teaches children to œdevelop creative movements through innovation rather than imitation, for which 8,000 students in 15 schools have signed up. And last year FitKids introduced Discovered, an investigative, hands-on sciences learning programme. œAlthough every programme costs twice as much and takes twice as long to get right, I am fairly satisfied with the…