Most schools are planning to replace sport and exercise classes with more academic sessions

Most schools are planning to replace sport and exercise classes with more academic sessions. How will this change affect children’s lives in your view?

The debate between where to allocate valuable teaching resources probably started with the first educational institutions. In present-day society the conflict continues and rightly so. In my opinion converting sports classes to more traditional subjects has two significant advantages. Firstly, it is a more effective use of a student’s time. Secondly, in the future, academic skills are more useful.

Switching time spent on sport in a school to time spent on more academic activities is a wise and cost-effective solution. Firstly, academic studies are inherently less expensive to perform when compared to physical education.

For example, to play almost any sport one has to invest in the appropriate equipment, ranging from shorts, t-shirts to rackets and balls. Furthermore, excess time is spent in the changing rooms or washing afterwards. In more traditional subjects, students merely enter the classroom and are learning within minutes.

Secondly, sport can be argued as an activity practised naturally by children, especially boys. In every school at break time many children engage in energetic activities, whereas hardly any are studying algebra, biology or physics. Because these subjects are less popular more resources should be allocated to teaching them.

In addition, academic skills could be argued as more important due to the small number of people in society currently using sport skills in a work environment. Thus, focussing on skills demanded by the labour market would benefit students’ lives dramatically in the future.

To conclude, young learners going through school would finish much better prepared for life avoiding sport tuition. Furthermore, they would have taken full advantage of their school years through more time spent learning.