Proposal to beef up physical education

A new department is being created in the Ministry of Education to craft and implement better PE classes and an expansion of sport.

ABU DHABI // Physical education is getting a makeover, starting with a new department to oversee physical education programmes in schools, the Minister of Education announced yesterday. The ministry's new department of physical education will develop a PE and health curriculum for classes and sport programmes for schools, in addition to drafting plans to build the necessary facilities.

Neither a schedule nor a budget was released with the announcement, nor did the Minister, Humaid al Qattami, announce who would head the new department. Dr Ghada el Edel, a paediatrician at Al Noor Hospital in Abu Dhabi, said the existing physical education curriculum in state schools was not up to scratch. "I think they are getting only one hour now," Dr el Edel said. "They need at least four to six hours per week."

Dr el Edel stressed that there was a link between exercise and obesity and pointed to the UAE's high rate of childhood obesity. Twelve per cent of the country's children are believed to be overweight, and another 22 per cent are thought to be susceptible to obesity because of poor diet and a lack of exercise, according to official Ministry of Health statistics. Statistics released in May by the World Health Organisation revealed that 39.9 per cent of women in the Emirates are obese, the seventh-highest proportion in the world.

At 25.6 per cent, the number for men was lower but still puts the UAE at number nine. A three-month campaign, the Fat Truth, was launched by the Ministry of Health to combat childhood obesity last April. An overhaul of the physical education curriculum has been on the Ministry of Education's agenda for at least two years. Under the previous education minister, Dr Hanif Hassan, similar plans were being drafted and consultants had been brought in to address the problem, but changes were not made to the amount of time allocated.

Though a precise figure does not exist, many schools across the country lack the facilities to run comprehensive physical education programmes. "Facilities for physical education are poor," noted a report released last year by the Knowledge and Human Development Authority, the agency that oversees schools and universities in Dubai. The report singled out physical education as an area for improvement in state schools.

"Physical education and arts subjects are little valued and enjoy only low status in public schools and many of the poorly performing private schools," it said. In its recommendations to the Ministry of Education, the KHDA suggested that the time allocated to physical education be extended. David Toghill, the integrated-learning co-ordinator at Al Safa Secondary School for Boys in Dubai, said his school devotes just a few hours to PE per week. Because there is not a gymnasium at the school, the boys take PE at a facility next door.

"I don't think that they have enough time devoted to sport for the students. "Obviously, if each school had a facility at the school, that would be preferable to using public facilities. However, they need to use what they can," Mr Toghill said. With the current school day at just six hours, schools would struggle to bulk up their PE hours, Dr el Edel said, unless the school day were extended. "They might need to expand the school day because in a school day of six hours, you cannot take four to six hours every week for PE. It seems like we need a longer school day to provide longer PE hours per week."