A country having more than a billion people stood last in Olympic medal list. Its a shame on India that it is not capable of producing sports person in par with other countries. There are various reasons for our poor performance in international level (except for cricket). Sports have a very poor base from where it develops. This reflects in poor sports standard. The lack of sports culture failed to create interest and participation of youth in all levels of sports. This further lead to poor performance at international level. The poor standard and performance failed to create interest towards sports from rulers, administrator ,industrialists and media person. This lead to poor availability of facilities for developing sports and the cycle continues. More over sports person must have a stable income by participating in sports. As the opportunity of earning money through sports is meager many sports person hesitate to consider sports as a career.
The present scenario must be changed by encouraging mass participation of youth in sports. Parents of younger generation are not supporting them to opt sports as a career. This is because sports is considered as an extra-curricular activity and not as a career. This must be changed and young people must participate in sports. In order to create interest in sports,
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Committees and recommendations on the subject are not lacking; but attempts on their implementation.
In the light of the above, the aim of the over the years have not met with the desired results, mainly due to practical problems, lack of adequate resources , trainers etc. It is obvious that unless there is an element of compulsion the administrators, teachers, students and above all the parents will not seriously consider physical education as an essential part of teaching and education.
The demand of parents to lay aside sports and concentrate on books alone should also change.
The steps taken by the Government to implement the National Policy on Education, 1986 with regard to sports and physical education, are not satisfactory at all. Physical activities in the schools and colleges are even now treated as one of the extra- curricular activities. Under economy measures government has banned creation of new posts, which has resulted in stoppage of appointment of physical education teachers. Even the retirement vacancies are not being filled in. At a result, the number of physical education teachers is getting reduced. Fee collected from students for sports are very minute and cannot facilitate any and cannot facilitate any significant physical education programme. Due to insignificant allocation of funds in this sector, nothing important can be done with regard to development of sports infrastructure and supply of sports equipments. The curriculum from the lowest level on wards is so much overloaded that both parents and students have usually no time to think or act beyond that. These trends need to be changed.
In order to integrate sports and physical activities in the curriculum and ensure mass participation in sports.
(1) Sports and Physical activities shall be made a compulsory part of educational curriculum Following inputs will be essential to achieve this- (a) Sufficient number of teachers (b) Equipments (c) Sports infrastructure (d) Compulsory syllabus/ evaluatory tests (e) Funds (2) For promoting mass participation more emphasis has to be laid at primary and middle level. (3) It may not be possible for many State Governments to appoint teachers in large numbers to cover all the schools. Such a number of qualified teachers will also not be available. We shall think of training the available teachers of other subjects for carrying out physical training in all the schools and colleges. A long-term plan has to be drawn for this purpose, as even training other teachers in camps at Block-Level or so will take lot of time for want of trainers and funds both. (4) In future every teachers ,trainee shall be developed as a sports teacher also. This can be done by making sports and physical education, a compulsory and evaluatory subject in teachers training courses. (5) For every 1000 students, one physical education teacher must be appointed. These teachers shall liase, with other teachers and shall implement physical education programme in the entire school or college for all classes/divisions under close supervision of the Headmaster/ Principal. (6) All State Governments are cutting the size of their force of employees as part of economy measures. This has resulted in no fresh appointment to the posts of Physical Education teachers and no creation of new posts for them. Thus, number of Physical Education Teachers instead of increasing has started decreasing. Central Government shall direct States in this regard to reverse the trends. (7) Teachers of other subjects may be paid some suitable allowance when they are utilised for teaching sports and physical education. (8) Emphasis should be laid on producing goad quality physical education teachers in the Universities and Physical Education Colleges. LNCPEs and SAI shall ensure that all Physical Education Colleges in the country have a standard syllabus and educational pattern. UGC shall help them in ensuring this. Wherever State Governments are running such colleges they shall be, run under the administrative control and Supervision of Department of Sports. Governments shall also prescribe proper qualifications in their Rules for the appointment of Physical Education Teachers and Lecturers. No course of less than one year duration shall be accepted as requisite qualification for the lowest grade of physical education teachers. (9) Sports equipments shall be provided to schools under `Operation Blackboard Scheme'. (10) A proper fee-structure shall be designed at the school and college level to facilitate managements to raise sufficient money for meeting the requirements of equiments, maintenance of play fields, organisation of school or college meets and for arranging participation of selected students at higher level competitions. (11) It has to be taken up in a phased manner under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme. State Government Schemes and other programmes. Construction of new playfields and improvement of existing playfields shall be undertaken tinder Jawahar Rojgar Yojana also. Joint Monitoring Committees comprising the authorities of Rural Development and Sports Department shall be set up at State-Level in this regard. (12) Centrally Sponsored Scheme of Sports Infrastructure Development shall be decentralised so that projects can be easily approved, assisted and completed. Central Government may periodically review the progress in this regard. (13) NCERT and UGC shall develop suitable syllabi and evaluation tests for the school and university students, with the help of LNCPE. Separate syllabi and tests must be designed for handicapped students. (14) Student at all levels have to undergo physical activities. They have to be tested and given marks for their performance. While failure in Physical Education need not lead to detention, the marks should be considered for all other purposes including percentage and ranking. At least 10% of the aggregate marks in each academic examination at all levels shall be fixed for Physical Education. (15) For each class/division in the school, college or university, one period shall be set apart every day for sports and physical activities. (16) Each school or college shall adopt such sports or physical activities for their students which are feasible to be organised or practiced there, keeping in mind the sports infrastructure available in the campus and near the campus. Indigenous sports and games may be preferred as they would need very little equipments. (17) Both students and parents have no time to spare for sports due to the heavily loaded curriculum of other scholastic subjects. This may be reduced, so that parents and students can accept physical activities as a regular item in their life style. (18) Activities such as NCC, N.S.S., Adventure Sports and Yoga etc. can not be taken up during the teaching hours due to various reasons and students will have to participate in these activities, only outside the teaching hours. Thus, these activities shall be treated as extra-curricular activities only and shall not be mixed up with Physical Education Curriculum at any level. Physical Education shall start as a compulsory curricular activity at all levels including colleges and universities. (19) Annual competitions should be arranged compulsorily in every school and college. However, for this only those events may be adopted, in which there are infrastructural facilities available within the campus or near the campus. Every school or college shall also ensure its participation in inter-school for inter-collegiate competitions in at least two identified disciplines. Those schools or college which fail to comply with this shall be disqualified from getting any type of Government or UGC grant. (20) State Governments shall be instructed to revise their Rules of School Games in accordance with the revised Prize Money Scheme of SAI. This will ensure more participation and encouragement to rural area schools. (21) Under the District Officers of the Education Department there shall be a Gazetted Officer to monitor the Physical Education Programmes in the schools and/or colleges of the District. (22) No new educational institution (school or college) may be granted recognition unless minimum sports infrastructure is available in them. (23) A sports fund should be created in each State with the annual contributions from the State and Central Government on 50 : 50 basis. The annual contribution from both together shall be at least one rupee per person in the state (total shall be worked out as per population figures of 2010 Census). This fund shall be operated by Department of Sports in the State/Union Territory Governments and administered by a Joint Implementation Committee comprising of authorities of both Sports and Education Departments. This fund shall be used to provide assistance to promote sports in the schools, colleges and universities by organising competitions, championship trophies, supplying of equipments, maintaining playfields and running coaching centres including sports hostels. (24) For a sports-student who is unable to take the examinations because of the participation in a coaching camp/tournament at University/State/Inter Varasity/National/International levels, special examinations shall be arranged soon after he is back in the institutions. State Governments and Universities shall ensure that such provisions are incorporated in their rules. (25) Physical Education shall be adopted as an optional subject for various job-oriented competitive examinations/tests, such as Civil Services Examinations. This will promote more students to under Physical Education Courses during their academic career. (26) Special preference shall be given to degree holders in Physical Education in the recruitment of personnel for Departments such as, Police, Excise, Customs, Forests etc. |
By adopting the right measures in the early stage itself, the interest of young people will be preserved and this will enhance their participation in sports. As proper facilities and trainers are available more people will be interested to take sports as a career and with proper source of income their performance will be good. This will lead to more funds and further facilities allotted by government to boost the sportsmen interest.
Footnotes: SAI- Sports Authority of India LNPCE- Lakshmibai National College of Physical Education Operation Black Board- The National Policy on Education (1986) initiated a scheme called "Operation Blackboard Scheme", which was launched in 1987. It was formulated with an assumption that the improvement in school environment would increase the enrolment rate, retention rate and attainment levels of primary school children. The three interdependent components in the scheme were provision of at least two reasonably large rooms that are usable in all weathers, with a deep veranda along with toilet facilities for boys and girls separately; provision of at lest two teachers, as far as possible, one of them a woman, in every primary school; and provision of essential teaching learning materials. The scheme prescribed the above-mentioned minimum level of facilities to all primary schools with a view to ensure improvement in school environment. The scheme has realized its goals to some extent and these results will be of use to a great extent in realization of the objectives of District Primary Education Programme and Sarva Shiksh Abhiyan. Jawahar Rojgar Yojana-Jawahar Rojgar Yojna (JRY) is a poverty alleviation scheme, which falls under the category of works program for creation of supplementary employment opportunities. JRY was formed in 1st April 1989 by amalgamating two wage employment programs viz., National Rural Employment Program (NREP) and Rural Employee Guarantee Program (RLEGP). JRY includes two sub-schemes, viz., Indira Awas Yojana (IAY), a housing program and the Million Wells Scheme (MWS). |