Constraints to implementation of physical education and sport as a compulsory subject among selected primary schools in Mansa district of Luapula province

Abstract

Physical Education (PE) is as old as humankind itself. Man had to be fit to survive. During the Colonial Era, PE was practised in school; however, with more emphasis being placed on improvement of academic skills, PE slowly lost its place in school. This study sought purposed to explore and determine constraints to implementation of Physical Education and Sport (PES) as a compulsory subject among selected primary schools in Mansa District of Luapula Province. To achieve this, the study specifically endeavoured to: find out the benefits of PES from the respondents' point of view who included teachers and officers from decision making institutions; examine how PES is viewed and handled in primary schools; analyse factors hindering the successful implementation of teaching PES as a compulsory subject in primary schools and explore the strategies that are likely to overcome the hindrances. The study employed both qualitative approaches in context of survey design. Non-probability sampling approaches were used. Data was collected using semi-structured interviews, simple unstructured observations and discussions. The results of the study showed that the factors that constrained compulsory implementation of PE were diverse in nature. The misinterpretations and misconceptions about PES revealed that the respondents, especially non-PES teachers were more familiar with the meanings than the benefits. This was due to poor awareness and literacy. PES practises were limited in nature and only biased towards outdoor psychomotor skills. Majority of the respondents, predominantly those from non-PES background disagreed with the idea of compulsory implementation even though the revised curriculum clearly spells out the teaching of PES as a compulsory subject. They argued that, PES was not a matter of urgency and that there were other examinable subjects such as science that deserved more time than it. However, from the findings, the constraints that seemed prominent were lack of adequate resources, trained PES teachers, and poor leadership. The main recommendations of the study included an urgent need for the government through the Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Early Education (MESVTEE) to implement annual examinations, procure materials and train more PES teachers. The government through the Curriculum Development Centre needs to institute a monitoring and evaluation team to check the extent to which PES is being implemented in primary schools. The study therefore, concluded that adequate investment in procuring teaching and learning materials, infrastructural development and capacity building were likely to reduce on the constraints that hinder compulsory implementation of PES in primary schools. The study recommended the need to invest in procurement of teaching materials, infrastructural development and capacity building because they were deemed to be catalysts towards compulsory implementation of PES. A large scale survey to explore the factors constraining the implementation of PES as a compulsory subject is needed. This one was small in terms of spatial extent.