Leanne Jansen
DURBAN: Concerned that at least half South Africa’s children are active for less than an hour a day, the Basic Education Department and the Physical Education Institute of South Africa have banded together to encourage physical education at schools.
No longer a stand-alone subject in the new Caps curriculum, physical education forms part of life orientation, from Grade R to Grade 12.
Norman Mphake, founder of the institute, believed schools were the ideal setting for teaching children how to adopt and maintain active lifestyles through organised and assessed physical activity.
Visiting Durban at the weekend, for the launch of a Zulu-language personal-training course at the Physical IQ college, Mphake said the more a country developed, the more inactive its citizens became.
Earlier this year the department encouraged schools to celebrate Physical Education Month, and Physical Education Day on May 10.
Results of last year’s Discovery Vitality Healthy Active Kids’ Report Card found less than half of South African children who lived in cities took part in organised sporting activities, and that most spent almost three hours a day watching television on weekdays. Added to this was their high ingestion of fast foods.
Pupils in this initiative learnt skills such as co-ordination through activities like throwing and catching while running in different directions without bumping into each other. Jumping over or climbing under obstacles taught spatial orientation.