Feature
No.44
May 2005
 
    

Follow-up International Survey of the State and Status of School Physical
Education
Ken Hardman & Joe Marshall, United Kingdom
 

The ICSSPE/IOC World-wide Survey on the state and status of physical education in schools (Hardman & Marshall, 2000) exposed a decline and/or marginalisation of this essential school curriculum subject in many countries of the world. Deficiencies were apparent in: curriculum time allocation, subject status, material, human and financial resources, gender and disability issues and the quality of programme delivery. These findings were reinforced in a subsequent Council of Europe Survey administered in member states and reflected in Conclusions (adopted as Recommendations by the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers on 30 April 2003) at the Informal Meeting of Ministers responsible for Sport in Warsaw, Poland 12-13 September 2002. The ministerial Conclusions acknowledged a serious decline in the quality and the time allocated for teaching physical education and sport for children and young people in schools as well as inadequate opportunities to participate in recreational sport out of school.
It is imperative that monitoring of developments in physical education across the world be maintained. The Council of Europe's ministerial Conclusions and Recommendations, the UNESCO `Round Table' Communiqué and the WHO Global Strategy have called for monitoring systems to be put into place to regularly review the situation of physical education in each country. Indeed, the Council of Europe referred to the introduction of provision for a pan-European survey on physical education policies and practices every five years as a priority!
Thus, a follow-up survey to the World-wide Survey on the State and Status of School Physical Education is being undertaken by Ken Hardman and Joe Marshall on behalf of North Western Counties Physical Education Association (NWCPEA)in the UK with the support of University College Worcester, Liverpool Hope University and from the Council of Europe CDDS Unit, and approval of ICSSPE, UNESCO and WHO.
This follow-up survey intends to reveal whether the situation in school physical education/sport has changed since the Berlin Physical Education Summit of 1999. Specifically, the survey focuses on the following items.
  • National level data (legal status, responsible authority, curriculum time allocation and examination status)
  • The Physical Education Curriculum (aims, themes, content, evaluation and equity issues)
  • Resources (facilities/equipment and teaching personnel)
  • The Physical Education Environment (status of subject and teachers and links with wider community)
  • Issues in provision (concerns and/or problems)
  • “Best Practice”.
Underpinning the survey will be a review of associated recent literature.
Data evaluation will assist in the delineation of the nature of the present situation of, and related issues in, physical education/sport in schools. It is intended to disseminate the findings at the Second World Summit on Physical Education, scheduled to take place in Magglingen, Switzerland in December 2005 and in a published Report.
Anyone requiring more information about the purposes of the research as well as information on the situation of school physical education/sport in international dimension can visit the designated web-page on the University College Worcester web-site, accessed at:
http://www.worc.ac.uk/worldpesurvey
Please note the site also includes an electronic version of the survey questionnaire (in English), which can be completed on-line and returned over the “net”. It is also possible that an e-mailed version (in English or French) can be sent on request to anyone wishing to participate in the Survey. For the e-mail version please contact Ken Hardman at either:
ken.hardman@tiscali.co.uk or k.hardman@worc.ac.uk

Dr Ken Hardman
Executive Board Member
International Society for Comparative Physical Education and Sport (ISCPES)
Manchester, UK
Email: ken.hardman@tiscali.co.uk




http://www.icsspe.org/portal/bulletin-may2005.htm