The Role of Educational Institutions on Professionalizing Sports in Bangladesh

Abstract

Recently, sports are contributing to the economic wellbeing of a nation or a country unprecedentedly, thus, many states are focusing on sports not only as a recreational activity, but also as an economic activity. Ironically, Bangladesh is among one of those countries that do not institutionalize sports integrally in their curriculum compared to the academic subjects. In most of the schools in Bangladesh, sports are not recognized as a potential arena of preparing professional athletes who are going to contribute to the economy; rather sports have been taken as merely physical education, or as recreational activity. In Bangladesh, a sport is considered typically as a physical and recreational activity. Unlike academic subjects such as English, Mathematics, History, etc., sports is regarded as an undervalued subject in terms of career aspiration. The purpose of the study is to find out the role of schools in institutionalizing sports to nurture, foster and develop sports person at the early stage of school days. This research is based on both qualitative and quantitative data. Structured and semi-structured questionnaires are used for data analysis. Surveys were conducted in two renowned schools in Chittagong, Bangladesh. Total number of participants of the study is 153. This study presents that schools do not prioritize sports to flourish as a profession. One of the core reasons behind the lack of importance to sports is inadequate sports equipments provided by the schools and the government. Implementation of government policies and collaboration from the sports institution is essential in order to escalate the importance of professionalizing sports.