Mandatory annual physical fitness tests will be introduced in schools for children aged 10 and up under new plans put forward by the education ministry. Pupils’ results would be entered into a national database.
The ministry argues that the system will help support children’s development and help identify sporting talent. But one deputy school principal has called it a “sick idea” that will cause “unhealthy competition” and “stress” among pupils.
Only 2% of Poles say they exercise or play sport regularly – which is the joint-lowest figure in the EU – and almost two thirds never do so, new @EurobarometerEU data show https://t.co/Pf4htZI9SH
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The new measures are included in amendments to the core curriculum proposed by the ministry last week and now undergoing public consultation, reports the Polish Press Agency (PAP). If passed, the system would go into place for the new academic year in September.
It would introduce an annual fitness test, to take place in March or April, for all pupils in grade four and above of primary school and in all grades of secondary school.
The test would include four elements: running 10 times over a distance of 5 metres; a “beep test”, which measures how many times someone can run back and forth over a 20-metre distance; a “plank test”, which measures how long someone can support themselves with their forearms; and a standing long jump.
The Polish government is making it harder for children to get a doctor's note excusing them from physical education classes
It is also introducing a pilot programme to regularly test children during such lessons, including monitoring their body mass index https://t.co/YtjKzR0mA0
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PE teachers will enter results from the tests into an ICT system, called Sportowe Talenty (Sporting Talents), administrated by the sports ministry.
In its proposals, the ministry notes that the test results would not affect students’ grades for PE. Rather, they “should be used to indicate the strengths and weaknesses of the student’s physical fitness in order to plan further development”.
Meanwhile, aggregated data from the system will be analysed by the state Institute of Sport and provided to relevant ministries to inform policy.
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This will “enable the creation of optimal, targeted actions in this regard, addressed to specific groups of recipients” and “will make it possible to stop the negative trends in physical activity of Polish students”, says the ministry. The system will also help identify sporting talents among students.
However, one deputy principal, Marcin Józefaciuk who works at a school in the city of Łódź and is a passionate runner, told news service Onet that he was opposed to the proposals.
“To me, it’s a sick idea,” he said. “It will be stressful, it will lead to a situation where kids will try to sign out of PE. It will be unhealthy competition, which will lead to the fact that instead of getting children interested in sport, they will be very demotivated to participate in any physical activity.”
Main image credit: MEiN (under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL)
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
