Early childhood physical education needs improvement

In recent years, following the implementation of the "Health China" strategy, society paid more attention to children's health, and physical education plays an important role in children’s education. From the increase in for-profit early-childhood sports training institutions, to children's sports competitions and children's sports equipment exhibitions, one can easily feel the rising popularity of children's sports.

How can we guarantee safety and develop children's athletic abilities? How do we make up for the lack of professional venues, the shortage of teachers, and the unreasonable positioning of physical activities’ in early-childhood curriculum? Recently, the Summit Forum on Health China and Children's Sports Developments was held at Changsha Normal University. Regarding the widely discussed topics, our reporter interviewed many professionals and scholars at the forum

Deterioration of children's physical conditions is a significant worldwide public health issue

"Early childhood is the stage when children's physical and functional developments grow at a rapid speed. It is also an important period for forming their sense of security and optimistic attitude. A well-developed body, pleasant mood, robust physique, coordinative movements, good living habits and basic living abilities are important symbols for children's physical and psychological health. It is also the foundation for the study and development in other domains," Liu Qian, professor of preschool education at East China Normal University, says. "At present, an individual child tends to live a lifestyle where they sit more and move less. The ubiquity of lacking physical activities causes children's physical and psychological health to deteriorate, and is a key factor inducing obesity, metabolic syndrome, and other chronic diseases."

Yang Bin, deputy Party secretary of Changsha Normal University states that: "Sports is mainly using physical exercises to fulfill educational needs, therefore, cultivating physically and psychologically healthy and well-rounded individuals should be the primary goal of sports. The emerging phenomena of children's sports becoming 'competitive' and 'specialized' shows a lack of comprehension of the significance of sports activities in helping children to develop in a more well-rounded way. It is a manifestation of the utilitarianization of education."

"Currently, our nation's preschool education is entering a critical developmental period and a transformational stage," Liu Qian says. Kindergarten health education needs to face the shortage of professional teachers and other new challenges.

"Including Changsha Normal University, there are only three schools in China which train professional teachers for children's sports education. For the graduates who study physical education at our school, demand exceeds supply every year," states Yang Bin.

Related specialists who conducted research in Beijing and Shanxi Province found that, around 78.4% of kindergartens do not have full-time sports teachers. A research in Guangdong Province demonstrates that kindergarten teachers who graduated from sports majors only account for 2% of all kindergarten teachers. The enormous gap between demand and supply causes the rapid deterioration of quality in kindergarten sports teachers.

"Kindergarten sports education is a professional and systematic subject which requires a scientific training system and standards, specialized textbooks and teachers." Yang Bin suggests that in school education, the module of sports education should be added into the subject of preschool education, and the module of kindergarten sports education should be added into the subject of sports education, to make up for the lack of kindergarten sports education professionals from these two structural systems.

Then, who should be responsible for promoting children's physical health? How should it be done?

Zhang Ying, associate professor at Hangzhou Kindergarten Teachers' College at Zhejiang Normal University, states that children's development is influenced by different environmental factors such as family, community, and kindergarten. Family is the first venue of education for children and the most important one. Therefore, we need to guild parents to have a proper concept of children's sports, learn related knowledge, and master the basic methods of some outdoor and indoor sports activities.

Dong Jinxia, director of the Women and Children's Sports Research Center at Peking University, states that in building children's physical health, family, kindergarten, and community should establish a three-way linkage mechanism, give full play to the effect and advantages of each, and form a three-way joint developmental scheme to integrate sports with children's lives, and accelerate the development of children's sports in society. "Although there are many difficulties and challenges ahead, I believe that for children's health, family, community, and kindergarten will definitely work together to find a fitting cooperative method and a working mechanism," says Dong.

Contributed by Yu Aihua, Guangming Daily reporter

Translated by Zhang Junye