HCM CITY — Nearly 70 per cent of schools in the country lack yard space for students to exercise, according to the Ministry of Education and Training.

Speaking at a launching ceremony for the Việt Nam Health Programme this week, Minister Phùng Xuân Nhạ said the education ministry, the Ministry of Health and other agencies had worked together on projects related to nutrition and physical health. 

However, Nhạ said that ensuring nutrition and physical health was difficult because instruction, administration and interdisciplinary co-ordination in some provinces were still inadequate.  
Staff for these tasks have not received professional training, leading to poor teaching of sports, he said.

According to the education ministry, the country has nearly 80,000 teachers of sports, but two-thirds of them teach other subjects.

Speaking at a conference held on February 23, Đinh Đức Thiện, specialising in physical education in the Bắc Ninh Province ’s Department of Education and Training, said the province has only 413 trained sports teachers.

Quality in teaching is not high, so students are not interested in learning sports, Thiện said.

Nhạ said that many sport teachers focus on theory while skills are ignored and the time for doing exercise at school is limited.

Universities of physical education and sport should change their training programme and methods, he said.

Dr Nguyễn Duy Quyết, rector of the Hà Nội University of Physical Education and Sport, said the training programmes had failed to meet labour market demand.

Dr Vũ Đức Thu, former head of the ministry’s Department of Physical Education, acknowledged that there was a shortage of facilities and yards.

A report from the ministry found that only 31 per cent of kindergartens have sufficient facilities for physcial education and sports.

Nearly 80 per cent of schools and only 36 per cent of universities have gym facilities.

At least 99.6 per cent of schools and 87 per cent of universities do not have swimming pools.

Châu Vĩnh Huy, rector of HCM City University of Physical Education and Sport, said that most schools in urban areas face a shortage of land while rural schools lack capital.

Because of the shortage of yards, students at many schools in the city have to exercise at parks near them.   

Thừa Thiên-Huế Cty faces the same problems, according to Dr Nguyễn Gắng of Huế University

Nhạ has instructed principals and rectors to improve physical education and sport facilities and activities at their schools. — VNS