7.3 Sport, youth fitness and physical activity
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On this page
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National strategy(ies)
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Promoting and supporting sport and physical activity among young people
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Physical education in schools
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Collaboration and partnerships
National strategy(ies)
The state strategies in the field of sport are:
'Strategy to support sport in 2016 – 2025 – SPORT 2025' by Governmental Decree no. 591/2016
'Plan of support of sports development 2015 – 2017' and for period 2018 - 2019 by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports
'Health 2020 – National Strategy for Health Protection and Promotion and Disease Prevention' from the year 2014.
There is also the Act no. 115/2001 Sb. on supporting sports.
Since the end of 2005, there is also Methodology to ensure the safety and health of children, pupils and students. It brings standards how the safety of sport and physical activities, especially in school facilities, should be tackled. In 2007 also
Methodical information - playgrounds and gyms were issued to better harmonise the issues around gyms and playgrounds for children and Young people.
Actual issues in sports policy development are discussed in the advisory body of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports National Council for Sport.
The Strategy SPORT 2025
The responsible state authority for the implementation is the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports. However, practically all other ministries have ascribed co-responsibilities.
The Strategy is overarching to all target groups of the Sports Policy. Children and Young people are one of the main target groups as well as professionals a state representation.
The priorities of the Strategy in relation to children and Youth:
- Stop the decline in the physical fitness of children and youth
- Stop the growth of overweight and obesity in children and youth
- To increase the level of motion literacy
- Reduce the economic participation of families in the sport
The aims are:
- Promote the development of sports clubs, sports, and physical education units
- Encourage mass promotional and motivational sports events (family action)
- Continue to support talented youth programmes in cooperation with sports federations
- Intensify the education system link with the preparation of talents and representation
- Raise awareness of sports for children
- Develop the performance of youth sport regardless of the perspective representation
- Upgrade the system of training of experts in sports and strengthen the mentoring of children
- Develop school and university sport
- Restore and build sports infrastructure
- Develop sports for disabled young people
There are no revisions or updates, as the strategy is rather new and in the first years of implementation since 2016. Action Plans serve to implement the Sports Strategy. Action planes are evaluated for the given period, usually 3 or 2 years.
Promoting and supporting sport and physical activity among young people
The promotion of sport and physical activity among young people is a cross-sectoral issue on a horizontal and even vertical level, where regional authorities are also involved.
Following the implementation of the Sports strategy, several measures are in place. Young people are mostly targeted via the school system. The state also supports theirs out of school activities. On Young people and their support structures are target following subsidy programme:
Call UNIS (Výzva UNIS)
This programme supports students with sport talent. The allocation for 2024 is 15 300 000 CZK (cca 603 550 EUR). The programme is devoted to students with exceptional sports performance to reconcile studies with sports training.
Physical education in schools
Physical education is an obligatory part of the state curricular documents.
There is also a promotional activity 'An hour of additional sport' (Hodina pohybu navíc) in the extracurricular educational activities for the elementary schools. In January 2017, 350 elementary schools across the whole country were involved in this initiative. After the Pilot testing of this project finished new ways if the implementation and support were searched in 2018.
Methodological materials for teachers, schools, and sports trainers were created during the pilot testing.
According to the Strategy SPORT 2025 and the legislation on supporting sports activities, there is also the Subsidy programme IX. For supporting the organisation of school and tertiary education sports which can support up to 100 per cent of the project costs.
There is also a top-level initiative of the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports to support the involvement of the 'swimming preparation' into school activities. Swimming at elementary schools is quite a traditional activity since the 1960s. Currently, it is up to the school director to decide whether it will be done at that particular elementary school and included in the school curricular document for the obligatory school attendance or not.
Collaboration and partnerships
Collaboration and the formation of partnerships between schools, youth workers, health professionals and sports organisations to promote youth fitness and physical activity among young people are to some extent promoted under the pilot testing of an initiative 'An hour of additional sport' (Hodina pohybu navíc). In the scope of the programme, the sports trainers and youth workers with physical activities are attending schools in the extra-curricular activities to promote various sports activities among the pupils and also to motivate them to participate in sport in their free time.
In 2015, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports launched a call for the financial support of the implementation of the initiative. The overall allocation for the initiative was 23 mil CZK (ca 855 500 EUR). From this allocation, 3 million CZK were devoted to the development of the methodological materials and testing and 20 million CZK for the involved schools – up to 10 million CZK for the year 2015 and up to 13 million CZK for the year 2016.