HYDERABAD: In a reversal of trend, the state government has accorded least priority to the physical education in the government schools. While other states, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala, are planning to lay more emphasis on the physical education in the curriculum, the state government has decided to downsize the strength of physical education teachers.
The government in a recent order, GO Ms No-55 issued on April 24, has decided to cut down 1,500 physical education teacher posts out of a total of 7,500. The new rule envisages just a single physical education teacher for every 820 students. In any case, the government schools are not having more than 1,000 students, the government appears to have decided to post not more than a single physical education instructor to each school.
The decision has come at a time when physical education teachers (PETs) have been clamouring for introduction of games as a compulsory subject in school curriculum. The teachers had even obtained the government's nod in this regard in January 2009. However, the state government went back on its decision and announced that schools need not have playgrounds to secure recognition.
Also, with just about 50 per cent of the government schools in the state retaining the land originally allotted to them for playgrounds, the future of sports education in the state seems to be quite bleak, experts said.
"States like Maharastra and Karnataka have decided to appoint two physical education instructors for every 300 students, AP is even retrenching the existing meagre strength of PETs," said B Karimulla Rao, general secretary, Andhra Pradesh Physical Education Teacher's Association.
"In most schools, there are teachers to train the students in athletics and games like kabaddi. But we do not have good football and basket ball trainers. And badminton and table tennis is not taught much," said Rao.
The talented pool of students are not getting the training enough to make it to the preliminary rounds in state-level competitions. "There are national players who had come out of government schools like footballers N Shivram, Amaresh and Subbarao. In this scenario, the state might lose out in the national and state-level sports meets," said a PET, B Yadaiah.
The government officials, however, claimed that the GO is not about cutting down PT teacher strength but to ensure that each school should get at least one PET. "There are schools where there is a surplus of physical education teachers. We would like to relocate them to schools which have no teachers," said Satyanarayana, commissioner and director of school education.
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