What is the importance of special needs education?

What are the urgent needs of the hour if we have to develop vibrant firebrand sports culture (totally excluding cricket) in India?

• Please give a hard-hitting,ruthlessly honest and brutally rational opinion on what needs to be done on all the levels be it individual, parental,societal,school,university,ministry of sports,core human thinking,media,sponsorship,fundamental duties,fundamental rights,non-governmental organisations,sports business,human spirit,etc. We have a population of over 100 crores and undeniably,undoubtedly,unquestionably speaking, there is no dearth of talent in India.Yet when it comes to sports education,pursuing sports as career, importance of sports psychology , most of us always step-back and then consciously step-over these issues. Please share your clever,sharp,penetrating,insightful thoughts  on how to dig-in,fire-in & build-in the sporting spirit,sportsmanship thinking in as many Indians as possible.

• Answer:

  Having worked in a sports startup for 3 years, it has been an interesting time to watch and learn about sport in India. First, a question - why have a sports culture? Because it comes with medical, social, and geopolitical benefits. Is it essential to have a sports culture? Is there strong correlation/causality of sporting culture with the things a nation needs – economic development and a social happiness quotient? I am not really sure. But yes, sport has some very, very strong positives that a country like India could surely take a step forward with, and hence the whole clamour for a culture of sport. In the context of this answer, I'm defining sports 'culture' as the viewershipand participation behaviours exhibited by people. Everything else is a part of the larger 'industry' that these platforms create – some are economic functions (the business of sport), others enhance the ability to perform/consume sport. 1.  VIEWERSHIP Viewership = watching sports on TV (the widest reach medium today in India) or live. This is impacted by a few variables - not mutually exclusive or collectively exhaustive... ·        Media - the inclination of TV channels to air sports directly (and obviously) impacts viewership. What could media do better? It is not fair to expect a channel to air obscure sports properties to 'promote' a sports culture - they're in the business of monetizing sport, not developing it, and fairly so. However, live properties and their innumerable repeats form one part of a channel's total inventory - there is a non-live bucket which could potentially be better utilized towards demystifying and promoting new sports. ·        Winners - if people from your country are doing well at a sport, you're bound to get curious and start seeing what the fuss is all about. A bunch of shuttlers doing well for India in the recent past has started attracting more eyeballs to badminton. I believe the irreversible shift from hockey to cricket started happening around the time we started losing in the former and winning in the latter, in the 80s. Producing winners is linked to the participation element, explained later. ·        The network effect - viewing sports is also related to being part of a network of other fans and viewers. Sometimes sports that are global in nature and have a large fan base outside start gathering critical mass in Indian fan following due to cultural exchanges. Somewhere along this, the tipping point happens wherein it starts becoming viable for media to jump in and propel this network further by bringing global properties to Indian homes. This just happens. ·        Participation - viewership does have a cyclical relationship with participation. For instance, if as a child, you took to playing a sport, it might instil basic curiosity to follow it when it comes on TV. There could also be cultural factors that shape our idea of what sport's worth watching. We may take pride in watching some sports and sneering at others. We might consider some sports too fast, too slow, too repetitive, too snooty, too violent. Of course, this is a subjective area. In any case, we don't really consider insufficient viewership as a problem plaguing sport in India except when considered that viewership might impact participation.   2.       PARTICIPATION Participation is really what we discuss as the 'problem'. Let us further break this into casual and competitive/performance oriented participation. Casual participation refers to the concept of playing sports for leisure or health, amongst both kids and adults. Competitive/performance oriented participation refers to serious intent towards making sports a career and aiming to excel at the highest level of competitive sports. Some variables impacting these are explored below - again, not MECE: a.     Casual participation: ·        Intent: Multiple distractions and demands on children’s time is a much quoted excuse for less sports and outdoor play time. If parents and schools understood the significance of sports for all-round development of children, they'd probably take it more seriously. Additional cultural barriers like 'sports is not for girls' or 'academics is everything' don't help. The Marks for Sport campaign by a prominent sports education company and a TV channel is ironic - their intent is honorable, but the unfortunate reality they've accepted is that you need to use 'marks' as the tug to get parents and children to do anything at all, even sports and games.   Schools need to take the initiative on this - children spend atleast a third of their childhood hours in school and parents are quite influenced by what schools consider important for their children. Time for free play and sports must be present in every single day of a school timetable. It can't be once a week, if math and science are five days a week. It can't be clubbed with a generic 'activity period' category, a lot of which ends up being treated as post-school optional participation time taken over by teachers for extra lessons in the scramble to complete portions before exams.   ·        Access: If you are the sort of parent that genuinely feels that their child should play more sport, it is still no good if your child doesn't have space to play. The constraints of space in India are endless. Forget about ideal ground and infrastructure conditions to play sport, the sheer quantum of space is so poor that you can't play most sports without fear of hurting someone or breaking something. What would children be expected to do? Streets are unsafe, residential areas do not necessarily have any structured sports infrastructure, and there are always more children than there are grounds or indoor courts. Needless to say, indoor games and television offers a comfortable substitute. Sports infrastructure doesn't need to be high quality or high capex - with some basic space and minimal investment, conducive sport spaces can be created - think table tennis, for instance. Governments or private bodies should look at this as a business opportunity - at decent proximity and with the right pricing, the Indian middle class will be willing to pay for the opportunity for their children to play safely. There has been good intent with initiatives like National Playing Fields Association of India  (NPFAI) and Panchayat Yuva Krida Aur Khel Abhiyan (PYKKA) by the government, but implementation is less than ideal.   Adult behavior will be shaped by what sport meant to them as kids. If you grew up in a sporting culture in your home, at school, chances are you are more likely to take to it as an adult, either as a hobby or for fitness. b.     Competitive/performance oriented participation Practically everything discussed so far impacts this in a much bigger way to produce winners in a sport. Media exposure, global acceptance and scope to compete in the sport, legacy of winners in the sport from India, and good quality infrastructure are critical. A few other factors could be: ·        Cultural - we're still a culture of secure futures and savings bank accounts. Does a career in sport offer us the security we seek? Inherently, it doesn't since the fittest of sportspersons don't last beyond 40, and the working Indian believes in earning till he's 60. Who or what accounts for the 20+ years of potential productivity? Either the government starts 'funding' sportspersons post retirement - a cumbersome and slightly unrealistic expectation - else, they create the right ecosystem to keep them productively employed in the industry. Which brings us to the next point...   ·        Institutional - the National Skills Development Council (NSDC) has estimated a personnel requirement for the sports industry to be 0.8 Million people by 2022. What is the backend to train these people to become industry ready? Despite having several PE universities and colleges, the number of institutes providing degrees in specialist sports coaching are far and few in between. There are hardly any universities or accredited training programs in India for other jobs in the industry - sports media, sports medicine, event operations etc. These are huge opportunities to give back stability and security to former sportspersons while staying close to their competencies and expertise, rather than giving them complimentary jobs in PSUs.   ·        Biological - I don't know enough about this, but we've heard discussions on Indians / people from the sub-continent just not being physically equipped for certain types of sports. It might not be a factor we can influence, but it could be something we accept and work around by building on our strengths for the competitive participation space.   A couple of decades ago, the subject of sports culture wouldn’t have stirred up as much discussion and endorsement as it does today. Things are moving in the right direction and though it isn’t going to be a speedy and radical change, but it is evident that we are going to leave a better culture of sport for the next generation of Indians.