Knowledge
Indian schools need to relook at the current PE curriculum to nurture a healthier future
In a bid to outshine other schools, most institutes have focused on pedagogy, subjects and facilities but the crucial emphasis on physical fitness is missing. Schools can either pull up their socks and give equal importance to PE as core subjects or they can choose to outsource them to sports start-
This writer vividly remembers the PE sessions he had during his school days. Most of the days included a free run in the school grounds with a freedom to play whichever sport he fancied, however, with no compulsion. Neither was there a benchmark to measure progress made in a particular sport. Today, inspite of schools boasting of better sporting facilities and world class coaches, a research has thrown up sorry figures. 25% of children from metro cities and 17% of from non-metro cities are obese. Isn’t it time schools reimagined their PE programmes?
Schools as sculptors:
Today schools are positioned as knowledge hubs that guide the child gently to help her achieve her true latent potential. While the above-mentioned features were considered as differentiating factors, all these are hygiene factors today. But where is the stress on physical fitness?
The figures say it all:
1. The flexibility quotient of metro students is 24.7 %, while it is 31.1 % from non-metro cities.
2. The anaerobic capacity (maximal work performed during maximum-intensity short-term physical effort) in metro city students was found to be 27.5 % in metro cities and 30.2 % in non-metro cities.
These statistics re-confirm the results thrown up by thousands of fitness tests conducted by The Sports Gurukul (TSG), a professional sports academy in Mumbai, in over 100 schools and 23 cities of India.
Children spend close to 15 years in schools, can we really expect them to only focus on the academic development of the child? The answer is a definitive NO. Certainly schools should aim to groom all-round personalities by the time they graduate from school.
So what’s happening currently in PT periods?
Most sessions are unstructured and non-planned which waste the time of children. Ideally, fitness needs the same attention as the core knowledge subjects. Sadly, the pressure to achieve good grades is so great, that adequate attention is not been given to fitness in traditional schools.
Here is how a school can evaluate its PE system:
If a school finds itself answering any of the following questions in a ‘yes’ then the PE sessions are on the right path, else it maybe time to re-evaluate:
1. Are Fitness and Sports an important part in overall education at school?
2. Do we have a well-defined plan for fitness of children in our school?
3. Is our PE and sports program run with a systematic curriculum and executed as per well-planned lesson plans?
4. Is progression of each child tracked and evaluated?
5. Is diet given importance in our programs?
6. Is there a regular assessment of our children conducted through worldwide established scientific fitness test batteries?
7. Are we using age appropriate sports equipment for children?
8. Is my teacher using the right Physical education teaching pedagogy and ensuring each child is being equally attended?
Start-ups to the rescue:
Many start-ups have trained their sights on school PE programs. While some have introduced focussed attention on key sports, others have collaborated with body kinetics research firms helping children achieve flexibility or strength milestones. One such institute that offers outsourcing of PE programmes is The Sports Gurukul (TSG).
1. TSG works with the Human Kinetics Physical education program, again further customised in the Indian context.
2. The curriculum is scientifically researched and already in use in over 3000 USA institutions.
3. Employs play-way methods along with intensive pedagogy training for trainers, who deliver systematic training.
4. Besides offering complete customised solutions for the school, TSG also offers the 'Train the trainer' model, where existing teachers are trained to extract better results from their current school PE programme.