Sports will quickly be a part of the curriculum of Indian schools. There will be hiring for sports teachers with good remunerations and also the students will be trained by professional athletes. Based on their merit, the government plans to pick kids out of school and help them to train for internal athletics events such as the Olympics while still continuing the academic education.
This was first suggested by National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and later Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the same during his Independence day speech while congratulating the winners of the Tokyo Olympics.
The Ministry of Education is working on modalities on how to integrate the two sides of education and detailed guidelines for the same can be expected within three months. This would not only change how sports are taught in schools but a number of vacancies for sports trainers will soon open up.
The aim of the policy is not only to ‘gauge the interest of the students in sports’ but also to ‘select future athletes for proper training at external locations.’
“There will be a dual role of the school and their sports teachers. One will be to gauge the interest of the students in sports and hone their talent. The other will be to help select future athletes for proper training at external locations,” a government official told moneycontrol.com.
As per the new policy, a certain number of hours will be dedicated to sports every week. Students will have the choice to learn any sport or build stamina and wellbeing. What a student would gain from the sports period will be decided on a case to case basis. To ensure all schools have equipment and infrastructure to support students, the government will allow crowdfunding by schools.
A group of trained and medal-winning athletes would also be made available. Depending on their time, these professionals could give training to school students.
Recently, two-time Olympian medallist and India’s star shuttler, PV Sindhu discussed her plans to open a sports academy and school in Visakhapatnam with PM Narendra Modi.
