Physical Education (PE) and School Sport (SS) in
South Africa demonstrate extremes and inequities.
Contrast is visible in all aspects of South African
life, but most significantly in education. White and
urban schools are relatively problem free, whereas
black and rural schools have been adversely
affected by the past governments’ apartheid and
separate development policies (Walter, 1994). Some
schools have well developed facilities, while the
majority have next to nothing. PE teachers are
qualified in some cases and grossly unqualified in
many others. PE programmes in white schools and
urban cities offer a wide and balanced variety of
activities while in others opportunities are limited to
a few movement activities. As a school subject PE
has been neglected, misunderstood, seen as being of
little importance and regarded as inferior when
compared to other subjects in the school curriculum
(Walter, 1994). In order to find out the status of PE
and school sport among school children aged 6-
15years, we administered the Sport in Education
(SpinEd) project questionnaire (Bailey, 2005) to
897 school children in two provinces and
contrasting geographical locations in South Africa.
The questionnaire focused on five main
themes/domains that refer to specific aspects of
children’s development and understanding through
PE and school sport, i.e. physical development,
lifestyle development, affective development, social
development and cognitive development. The
results showed some disparity in the perception and
understanding of PE and SS among the
respondents’ age group and geographical location,
specifically with regard to ‘feeling’ about PE and
SS, ‘values’ (importance) of PE and SS,
‘comparison’ of PE and SS with other school
subjects and ‘self-rating’ on PE and SS. Responses
to each of the five themes/domains varied across
age group, and geographical location, indicating the
fact that children need to achieve the five most
important developmental competencies –
foundational (knowledge), practical skills
(psychomotor), reflexive (affective), physical
(growth) and social skills for holistic development
and for PE and SS to adequately address the needs
of post-independent South Africa.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:tut/oai:encore.tut.ac.za:d1000931 |
| Date | 09 1900 |
| Creators | Toriola, AL, Amusa, LO |
| Publisher | African Journal for Physical, Health Education, Recreation and Dance |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | |
| Rights | African Journal for Physical, Health Education, Recreation and Dance |
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