The present study purposed to analyze the causes of today’s crisis in school physical education by comparing school physical education policies under the military government and the civil government and ultimately to provide basic materials for norm...
The present study purposed to analyze the causes of today’s crisis in school physical education by comparing school physical education policies under the military government and the civil government and ultimately to provide basic materials for normalizing school physical education in the future.
The military government emphasized the development of elite sports based on sports nationalism, so it did not give political considerations to national physical education in the true sense. Such a situation did not change much in the 6th Republic. In this situation, school physical education policies could not be free from the government’s inclination to elite sports, and resultantly school physical education was stagnated.
The civil government’s school physical education policies adopted neo-liberalism and marketism, and this crippled physical education even further. Besides, the amendment of the curriculums required under the neo-liberal system resulted in the collapse of physical education in high school.
Under the military government, the physical education curriculum pursued external values rather than intrinsic ones. Its contents were focused on the acquisition of sports skills, and physical education facilities could not meet needs for the goals and contents of education. This was an inevitable consequence of the policies emphasizing elite sports.
During the period of the civil government, the physical education curriculum began to collapse from its foundation. Although it attempted to reflect the intrinsic value of physical education, it reduced physical education classes and failed to attain autonomy and creativity in the school field. As in the former government, moreover, some events were still included in the curriculum without facilities to teach the contents.
After all, school physical education policies under both the military government and the civil government fell short of realizing the ultimate values of physical education. It was because they set importance on the external values of physical education in response to historical demands in each government. As a consequence, students were deprived of their educational rights and physical education could not achieve its ultimate goals, namely, balanced physical growth and the cultivation of character.
The special programs and activities of school physical education executed by the military government made significant contributions to the development of Korean sports including the early finding of talented athletes, the improvement of people’s physical strength, and the expansion of the sports population. Representative systems were the preferential treatments of distinguished athletes including special admission to university and exemption from military service, the physical strength test for improving students’ physical strength, and the National Juvenile Athletic Meeting for activating sports among young people. However, these systems caused problems such as low academic capabilities and illegal players. Thus, the civil government reduced preferential treatments for sports players and adjusted the system of the National Juvenile Athletic Meeting. Despite such measures, however, problems were unsolved and particularly the abolition of the physical strength test devastated school physical education.
The military government also executed policies for raising and employing physical education teachers. Physical education teacher training programs were installed not only in teachers’ colleges but also in ordinary universities, and they made a huge contribution to the supply of physical education teachers. However, they had limitations in enhancing the quality of teachers. The civil government tried to improve the quality of teachers through an open competition examination. As teachers were employed based on their knowledge, however, the system could not select high quality teachers fit for the field of physical education. After all, physical education teachers even came to lack specialty under the civil government.