Study On The Development Situation And Countermeasure Of "Sunshine Sport Campaign" In Rural Schools Of Shaanxi Province

In recent years, students in middle and primary school were undergoing a year by yeardecline in physical health, which has been seen as a major attentive issue of the whole society.Aiming at improving the health situation, mental status, and volitional quality, a “SunshineSport Campaign for Hundreds of Students” was implemented in a national wide scale and hasbeen proven to be effective. However, because of the limitations of factors like regionalenvironment, economic base and educational resource, many problems were found during thisimplementation process in schools of various levels and types, especially in rural schools.Thus, it is of great importance for improving physical health of students and effects of thecampaign to investigate the current situation of “Sunshine Sport Campaign” in rural schoolsand figure out existing problems as well as possible solutions.The present study, taking rural schools in Shaanxi province as sample, empiricallyinvestigated the implementation situation of the “Sunshine Sport Campaign” in these schoolsby using multiple analysis strategies, including literature analysis, observation and interview,survey and statistical analysis. We found external and internal factors that acted asdeterminants of the campaign and then gave some corresponding suggestions on thesustainable development of the “Sunshine Sport Campaign”. Here are some majorconclusions:Implementation situation: overall, the campaign is effective in rural schools in Shaanxiprovince and some particular procedures are summarized. But problems still exist in severalways:(1)77.3%of parents and69.9%of students were under the basic understanding of thecampaign while20.5%of parents and5.8%still held the opinion that the campaign wasunnecessary. These facts illustrated that there was not enough understanding of the campaignas well as the school propaganda.(2)6.2%of all sampled schools were not implementing thecampaign.70.8%of them reported a lack of special funds.35.4%of them could not carry outstudent physical health test for every single year and66.7%did not record and submit theirtest results to their superior education department, affirming that there was not enoughsupervision and control from the superior departments, and there was not enough performancefor state policy.(3)54.2%of school presidents and56.5%of P.E. teachers thought that the P.E.teachers for rural schools were far from enough and68.7%of the surveyed schools were stillunder the required number of physical teachers according to the national regulation. For those extant physical teachers, they generally held a lower level of educational background. Inaddition,79.4%of teachers and71.5%of students felt insufficiency of sports facilities. Theseanalyses lead us to the conclusion that physical teachers and facilities are still needed.(4)14.6%of the physical curriculums were substandard.65.1%of the physical teachers had theexperience that their P.E. curriculums were replaced by other major classes. Thesephenomenons reflected a lack of attention on physical curriculums of school leaders andexamination-oriented education system was still in dominance.(5)21.8%of students weretaking part in the campaign for the purpose of reaching the requirements of physical test. Theproportions for those who did exercise under twice a week are21.3%for male and24.5%forfemale. What’s more,65.6%of male students and87.3%of female students did not achievethe1hour requirement of the campaign, which demonstrated that the students were not wellmotivated to participate in the campaign.Influential factors:(1) Internally, the most important inhibitor of preventing studentsfrom participating in physical exercises is the huge study pressure, followed by low interest,inappropriate motivation, unhealthy lifestyle and so on.(2) Externally, lack of facilities turnedout to be the most negative influence. Short of teacher, sports singleness, old-fashionedteaching pattern, insufficient attention from the leaders, lack of atmosphere, poorunderstanding of the campaign, lack of supervision form superior departments and so on wereall significant factors with negative effects on the implementation of the campaign.Building on the above analyses, the following suggestions are proposed for rural schools:(1) Make a shift in the examination-oriented education system and fully understand theimportance of “Sunshine Sports Campaign”. At the same time, strengthen the propaganda ofthe campaign in various ways and create a positive and sustainable exercise atmosphere.(2)Set up functional sunshine sport organizations of various levels and types and build a moresustainable institutional system.(3) Speed up the process of implementing all-arounddevelopment-oriented education system and increase the number of physical teachers.(4)Raise the input funds of physical education in rural schools and improve the sports facilities.(5)Ameliorate the teaching pattern and enrich the extracurricular sports activities.