Natural death for sports in schools?

Sports in schools is slowly but surely going to suffer a natural death.

The front page report in The Sunday Times (Read the report) that male teachers will be extinct in 20 years' time if the teaching profession if not checked, will not only affect the teaching profession, but sports too.

The general consensus is that the male gender tends to shun the teaching profession.Ways are being looked at to make it more attractive for them to take up the profession, which includes relaxing the intake requirements for men.

However, for sports teachers, there is an immediate solution, which I have suggested on numerous occasions (Read this story) - lax the rules for sports science graduates to become teachers. There is two ways to go about it.

For starters, do away with the one extra year required by sports science graduates to do the Kursus Perguruan Lepasan Ijazah before they can become teachers. Make these teachers strictly sports teachers, so that they can use their expertise from their degree course to mould future sportsmen and women. They should not be required to teach in classrooms - if that is what Kursus Perguruan Lepasan Ijazah is all about.

Secondly, if it is absolutely necessary for the sports graduates to get their foundation in teaching, then incorporate the subject as a condensed version into the three years sports science degree course.

This way, we will not loose 75% of the sports science graduates going into other unrelated fields.

It is indeed food for thought, otherwise we have to face reality and see sports at the grassroots level suffer a natural death.

I am not saying that women teachers do not make good sports teachers, but the fact remains that it is a male dominated area. Besides, you need qualifications to be a sports teacher - just like you need the Kursus Perguruan Lepasan Ijazah to teach.

Besides, there will be no lack of women sports teachers because the sports science graduates include a fair share of women.

PE teachers in private school in Malaysia. Private schools give equal emphasis to PE as academic values.

So, while we are concerned about male teachers in the profession going extinct, please also think of sports and address the situation immediately.

After all, we are considered a Sporting Nation and millions of ringgit is spent on sports yearly. But equal emphasis has to be given to schools - the heartbeat of sports!