A new era in sports education

The Society of Jesus has educated people for over 400 years according to the spiritual and educational experience of its founder, St Ignatius Loyola.

The Jesuit vision of education, inspired by St Ignatius and his Spiritual Exercises, has been articulated for our current culture in the mission statements of Jesuit schools and universities throughout the whole world.

These various mission statements display a continuity and similarity in their descriptions of the distinctive dimensions of Jesuit education: God, person, excellence, leaders and adaptability.

The first objective of Jesuit education is to direct all towards the discovery and experience of God. Most mission statements specify that Jesuit education should help students and the entire educational community in a Jesuit school to grow spiritually.

Second, Jesuit education includes a concern for and effort to promote the development of the student's whole person. The Jesuit school should contribute to the balanced and integrated intellectual, emotional, moral, spiritual, social and physical formation of its students.

The third characteristic of Jesuit education is excellence. Every aspect of Jesuit education should embody and nurture excellence, so that the educational community may achieve its highest potential.

The fourth dimension of Jesuit education is to prepare leaders who will serve the common good of society. The Jesuit understanding of leadership necessarily includes the promotion of justice and the service of those most in need.

The final quality of Jesuit education is adaptability. Jesuit schools need to adapt to the signs of the times in order to properly educate a variety of students in a variety of ways to do a variety of things in a variety of cultures over a long period of constantly changing circumstances.

I feel I can confidently claim that sports meets these objectives of Jesuit education because they help to develop character, excellence and leadership, while cultivating virtues like charity, fairness, patience, loyalty, humility, discipline, co-operation and temperance.

The promotion of sports in an educational setting can promote life skills, social skills, physical fitness, mental alertness, tension release, educational advancement, career mobility, religiosity and patriotism. At the institutional level, sports supposedly create school spirit and community among the student body.

St Aloysius' College has made a breakthrough in the educational system by forming the first sports class in Form 1 for the 2005-2006 scholastic year. The aim of this sports class is to promote physical education as an integral part of the child's education from Form 1.

Although the present curriculum stipulates that each child in the secondary school should have at least two lessons of physical education every week, the creation of this sports class will increase these lessons to five lessons a week.

Apart from these lessons, students have to attend two training sessions after school hours every week, one in athletics and one in a team sports and an extra training session in fitness during one of the breaks.

Through the sports class, students should be able to prepare themselves much better for the Matsec physical education exam at the end of Form 5 and have a true attitude towards sports as part of their education. The creation of this sports class should also be a platform in producing future elite athletes in different sports.

May this new approach for better physical education classes in our educational system be an example to all other schools in setting up similar goals for the future of our children.