No.44 May 2005 |
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Understanding the Context
Twenty first century Australia is a multi-racial
society embedded in a predominantly British and Irish ancestral population
of around 20 million in total unevenly distributed but for the most part
located in the cities of the coastal fringe. Just as it is impossible
to reduce the context of Australian daily life to a single description,
so it is an equally fruitless task to identify the typical Australian
school. Education is a state responsibility and the state school system
is the responsibility of the eight state and territory governments. All
of these jurisdictions operate their own curriculum frameworks. Even the
starting age and the structures of schooling vary between the states.
To add to the diversity, just over a third of Australian secondary students
attend non-government schools. Despite the tendency of state systems in
particular to jealously guard their autonomy, there have been increasing
attempts to co-ordinate schooling within a national framework. Thus the
10th Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training
and Youth Affairs which brought together the state, territory and federal
Ministers of Education, published ‘The Adelaide Declaration on National
Goals for Schooling in the Twenty-first Century’ (Department of
Education, Science and Training, 1999). This was framed as “an historic
commitment to improving Australian Schooling within a framework of national
collaboration”.
Confident generalisations about the status of physical education in
Australia are virtually impossible to make. In the absence of hard data,
individual perceptions become a further source of variability as became
evident in the sources consulted for this paper (Boustead, 2004). Yet
there is one element about which there would be little dispute and that
is the central place of sport in Australian society. Thus one recent
social commentator reviewing the last 40 years of the nation concluded:
“…so deeply hardwired in the Australian
psyche is sport that these moments have given us far more than mere delightful
diversion. When all else around us was falling apart, when we ourselves
were becoming fractious and fractured, sport was the glue that bound us
back together, When the fighting in Vietnam was at its fiercest and most
politically divisive, two fighters Lionel Rose and Johnny Famechon, one
black and one white united us as Australian” (Smith, 2004).
The contrast between the confident place of sport in Australian society
and the more tentative place of physical education within Australian
education provides a deep irony. As reported in the ICSSPE world survey:
“…Even in a renowned sporting country such as Australia,
physical education has been deemed to be a marginal subject in schools
with low status of subject and teachers; this inferior status being
partly attributed to its practical nature in educational contexts that
favour intellectual activity” (Macdonald, and Brooker, 1997). Specific Australian Issues Identified by Hardman and
Marshall (1999)
Hardman and Marshall’s report identified some specific Australian
issues and it may be worth recalling some of these before going on to
consider the progress made since the Berlin Summit. They included:
An example from the state of Victoria was taken to illustrate concern
over teacher training:
“In Victoria, Australia, the ACHPER
Teacher Training Working Party looked at requirements of the Standards
Council of the Teaching Profession (SCTP) and PETE in Victorian universities.
The Working Party concluded that the inadequacies in physical education
practical/theoretical content knowledge, insufficient practical knowledge
components in degree structures, insufficient exposure and practice
at teaching across the secondary school curriculum and insufficient
exposure and practice at teaching primary PE suggest that some programmes’
graduates would be ineligible to teach within DOE schools” (ACHPER
Victorian Branch Inc., 1997).
ACHPER as the professional body has continued to lobby within that
state. The essential problem is that the move from physical education
(professional) based programmes to human movement/exercise science (discipline)
based degrees, which began in the 1970s has seen the knowledge base
move away from education faculties into science and health science faculties.
Although there are arguably some positives to this process, from the
perspective of preparing physical education teachers, one important
negative has been the demise of physical activity centred knowledge
(Dodd, 2004). Exercise Science departments have in general seen this
as being the responsibility of curriculum specialists who reside in
Education faculties. The curriculum specialists on the other hand say
they are now receiving specialists with an inadequate knowledge base
for them to prepare as teachers. To add to the problem, there are few
incentives for academics in either faculty to pick up low status activity
programmes that can contribute little to their own academic knowledge,
development and hence their careers and promotion. On the positive side,
one university with a highly rated Exercise and Nutrition Sciences School
has reintroduced the notion of a Bachelor of Physical Education through
its Education Faculty and this may lead to others following suit. But
in many universities, as they grapple with reform in the sector and
major issues of resourcing and competition, the issue has quite simply
become too difficult and insufficiently significant.
Over successive years in various systems’ curriculum frameworks,
physical education has been redefined in terms of personal development
and health, leisure and lifestyle education etc. Such redefinitions
have challenged the profession who have generally expressed the view
that such conceptualisations fail to encapsulate important dimensions
of physical education. The fear is that in such frameworks physical
activity can simply slip off the agenda. Consequently in the State of
Victoria, ACHPER currently feels the need to lobby energetically on
the issue of a clear identity of physical education as a mandated component
of the core curriculum.
If we consider The Adelaide Declaration on National Goals for Schooling in the Twenty-first Century as a major national policy statement, this has identified Health and Physical Education as one of eight agreed key learning areas. Further the Declaration’s eighth goal is that when students leave school they will “have the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to establish and maintain a healthy lifestyle, and for the creative and satisfying use of leisure time”. Yet it would be surprising if physical educators agreed that such an objective totally encapsulated the role of health and physical education as a key learning area, or that the other seven broad objectives between them made good that broad omission. In essence it is an ongoing debate which continues to take place, too often it seems without significant physical education voices at the table. Hardman and Marshall (1999) drew attention to
the observations of critics of the current balance between the funding
of elite competitive sport and basic physical education programmes.
However, the assertion that a fortune is spent "on a handful of
elite athletes through the AIS and a pittance on the physical health
and fitness of most Australian children..." (Williams, 1995) only
stands up if some sort of individual to individual comparison is made
that attempts to equate the per person expenditure on a handful of young
Institute of Sport athletes with the per person expenditure on physical
education for all other children their age around the country. The national
policy is quite clearly expressed through the Australian Sports Commission,
the Australian Government body that co-ordinates the Government’s
commitment and contribution to sport. It is charged with providing national
leadership in all facets of sport from the elite level through to the
wider sporting community. Clearly it will be the elite programme that
attracts a disproportionate amount of attention and public interest.
Yet the claim that “…We promote an effective national sports
system that offers improved participation in quality sports activities
by all Australians and helps those who are talented and motivated to
reach their potential excellence in sports performance” is supported
both by stated policy and by initiatives such as the Active Australia
Schools Network and the Active After School Communities’
Programme. Unfortunately it appears that, just as between those
who work as exercise scientists and those who work as physical educators,
there is a divide emerging between those who work in the different areas
of delivery of sport and physical activity services. This can only ultimately
be to the detriment of both ends of the continuum.
With regard to the pace of movement towards a
more inclusive system for the disabled, observation suggests that there
is a more positive message to report. The positive attitudes originally
identified by Hardman and Marshall have supported some steady improvements
in this area (Boustead, 2004). This is not to say that the limitation
of resources, both physical and human, have not continued to restrict
development from the optimum. However any such problems identified here,
more closely approximate the problems of attitude and priority found
throughout the system. Indeed paradoxically, values
of participation and involvement for the disabled are sometimes more
highly regarded than for children in the mainstream. The Berlin Agenda for Action
As a means of reflecting on progress on the Berlin World Summit’s
Agenda for Action the following observations are offered.
Agenda Item 1: Implement policies for Physical
Education as a human right for all children;
The initial development of such policies is not
really an issue within Australia. This is not to say that there are
not a number of policy issues which require careful monitoring –
such as the previous debate concerning the way in which physical education
should be identified within the curriculum framework. As elsewhere,
it is in the implementation of policy that the profession
and its voices really needs to apply itself. In comparison with some
other professional voices, such as those of our colleagues in law and
medicine, it is fair to say that the chorus has proved less inspirational
than we would wish.
Agenda Item2: Recognise the distinctive role of Physical Education
in physical health, overall development and safe, supportive communities
There remains a problem here because of the poor ‘branding’
of physical education. There is far greater recognition of the contribution
of sport throughout the community from the prime minister down. Sport
inspires powerful emotions and loyalties. Physical Education is generally
recognised as being something to do with ‘keeping fit’,
perhaps generally recognised as being something of a good thing, but
certainly not something to get passionate about.
Agenda Item 3: Recognise that quality Physical Education depends on
well qualified educators and curriculum time, which are possible to
provide even where other resources like equipment are in short supply;
For many years now Australian universities have been producing a good
supply of talented graduates in exercise science. This talent however
does not seem to have found its way naturally into the school education
system. Those that do enter the teaching profession, tend to have a
higher than average attrition rate. They report discouragement with
their perceived status in the schools and frustration with the support
received (Dodd, 2004). The attrition rate may not necessarily of itself,
be a bad thing, if it reflects the fact that graduates in this discipline
are more ambitious and have broader options than those in some other
subject areas. However if it reflects either a lack of access to training
courses or a perceived lack of attraction in the career itself, then
this is indeed a problem that can and needs to be addressed.
Agenda Item 4: Invest in initial and in-service professional training
and development for educators
Following on from the above item, there has been some concern expressed
in recent years about the lack of ability of the teaching profession
in general to attract and retain new talent. In particular it has been
noted that the profession is failing to attract young men. Steps such
as increased funding for universities for their teaching education programmes
and more targeted scholarships, are currently being implemented. The
challenge for the physical education profession is to ensure that it
retains an adequate proportion of this new investment.
Agenda Item 5: Recognise that failure to provide Physical Education
costs more in health care than the investment needed for Physical Education;
There is widespread recognition of the cost of declining levels of physical
activity for the burden of disease. There is particular recognition
of the price paid by children for society’s hypo kinetic disorder.
Yet at all levels of the community there remains an enormous gap between
recognising the cause and actually implementing the cure. There is not
the space here to assess the suggested reasons for this breakdown, but
it is an area where we as a physical education profession must be prepared
to look long and hard at ourselves to identify our own share of the
responsibility.
Agenda Item 6: Support research to improve the effectiveness and quality
of Physical Education;
One of the ironies of the growth in Exercise Science and related disciplines
in Australian Universities over the last two to three decades has been
the comparative decline in the number of physical education staff. Isolated
pockets of scholars in the pedagogy of sport and exercise appear to
contrast with ubiquitous exercise physiologists, sport psychologists
and the ilk. A comparison of the number of journals in the exercise
sciences and the research productivity which they reflect, with the
number of journals devoted to the scholarship of physical education
provides sobering grounds for reflection. The positive side of these
developments is that we know a lot more about the effects of exercise
and effective dosages etc than we did. However it seems we still know
little about how to embed the exercise message in school communities
and engender school graduates with a commitment to and excitement in
regular play, sport and exercise. It is however difficult to envisage
where the push and drive for such research is going to come from given
the limited profile of and support for our university based physical
education staff.
Agenda Item 7: Work with international financial institutions to ensure
Physical Education is part of the definition of education.
This agenda item reflects the need to build key partnerships in spreading
the message of physical education. Despite the fact that ACHPER has
embraced a strategy of making partnerships to deliver services, only
limited progress appears to have been made in the commercial domain
and particularly ‘at the high end’. One of the more successful
was in the 1980s link between Nabisco breakfast foods and the Daily
Physical Education programme. This is again an issue of ‘branding’.
The sport brand has attained a great deal of success, in recent years,
but this has not translated into success for physical education. We
need to ask ourselves why these opportunities are not able to be grasped.
The Report Card
The report card for Australian Physical Education then for its progress
on the issues relevant to the Berlin agenda since the ICSSPE world-wide
survey, might read something like this
Comments
The more extended comments on that same report card might further focus
on three observations:
Conclusion
The conclusion then is a somewhat melancholy one
not in terms of the immediate state of Australian Physical Education,
which as indicated, is relatively comfortable, perhaps even complacent.
The problem is a long term one for the physical education profession
as currently constituted. In facing the problem of inactivity among
children, to whom did the Australian Government turn? It was not to
the physical education profession but to the sporting community. The
ASC and the sporting bodies are to provide the expertise for The
Active after School Communities ’ Programme. This is simply
another reflection of a trend that has emerged for schools to sub-contract
the delivery of their physical activity programmes to commercial suppliers.
This reflects further movement of the subject matter away from the core
of the curriculum to the status of an ‘add on’. My fear
is that beneath the complacency, even in Australia there are growing
signs consistent with Hardman and Marshall’s (1999) concern that
“school physical education is in a perilous position in all continental
regions of the world”. In summary, unless the physical education
profession can find a more relevant and strident voice, the delivery
of activity in the schools will grow without them and they will be condemned
to “Persistent marginalisation in a world of change and
opportunity”.
References
ACHPER Victorian Branch Inc., (1997). Physical
education, teacher education in Victorian universities 1997. Report
of ACHPER Teacher Training Working Party. Melbourne: ACHPER (Victorian
Branch)
Australian Sports Commission (2004) Active
After-school Communities’ Program http://www.ausport.gov.au/aasc/about_aasc/about_program.asp
Boustead, J. (2004) Personal discussion.
July
Department of Education, Science and Training
(1999) The Adelaide Declaration on National Goals for Schooling
in the Twenty-first Century.
http://www.dest.gov.au/schools/adelaide/adelaide.htm Department of Health and Family Services (1998)
Developing an Active Australia; A framework for action for Physical
Activity and Health. Canberra: AGPS
Dodds, G. (2004) Personal discussion.
July
Hardman, K. & Marshall, J. (1999) World-wide
Survey of the State and Status of School Physical Education.
Preliminary Report. Manchester, Campus Print Ltd.
Jupp, B. (2004) The Australian Forty Years
Series Part1 . June.
Macdonald, D., and Brooker, R., 1997. Moving
beyond the crises in secondary physical education: an Australian initiative.
Journal of Teaching Physical Education, 16.
pp.155-175.
Smith, W.(2004) Dreaming of Gold in Forty Years Part 8 Sport. June
Williams, G., (1996). "Let's get more physical". The Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday, 10 January. p.4.
Assoc. Prof. John E. Saunders
Centre of Physical Activity Across the Lifespan Australian Catholic University, Vic 3065, Australia Email: J.Saunders@patrick.acu.edu ![]() http://www.icsspe.org/portal/bulletin-may2005.htm |