Education Ministry to push more physical activities into school curriculum

The Ministry of Education on Thursday held the finals of the National Physical Display Championship at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall where schools from across the country assembled to display their skills in physical education.

The event aims to have students involved in physical activities using a mixture of pyramid and gymnastic movements.

Loraine Barker-King, administrator of the Unit of Allied Arts told the media that physical education activities will be budgeted for in 2020 to encourage students to become active in and out of school by providing opportunities to get students more involved in physical activities.

“Come 2020 our budget will reflect training of especially primary school teachers; we are going to do a pilot training with approximately 15 schools where we are going to engage them in activities so that they can transfer it to our children,” Barker-King Added.

Barker-King said the Education Ministry is also seeking the help from sports organizations to assist in having events outside of school.

“We are doing a lot of collaborations, right now we are working with Petra, Petra is doing a lot of the Primary School football.

“The Guyana Football Federation, they also are a huge part of this activity, we have cricket, rugby and other sport disciplines.

“We have programs in schools where we have the Rugby Federation they are going into schools and training teachers as well as children.”

The Allied Arts Administrator said part of the plan by Ministry of Education is to ensure that children are physically fit and healthy and this is why they are continuing to donate materials that will keep children active.

Failure to meet current physical activity recommendations is responsible for more than 5 million deaths globally each year across all age groups.

Currently, over 23% of adults and 80% of adolescents are not sufficiently physically active.

If healthy physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep habits are established early in life, this helps shape habits through childhood, adolescence and into adulthood, according to an article published by the World Health Organization in April 2019.