"There is a chronic underfunding in provision of physical education for pupils with disabilities, leading to overall time-reductions in their physical education (PE) in schools across Europe," said Professor Ken Hardman from the UK's University of Worcester, presenting the findings of his study on EU physical education.
Speaking in a public hearing on sports and education, organised by the European Parliament's Committee on Culture and Education on 28 February 2007, he also highlighted differences between eastern and western European countries with regard to disabled children's access to physical education in school. In the hearing, MEPs and experts discussed the added value of sport for social inclusion and the sport situation of the disabled and ethnic minorities.
According to Hardman, all member states have laws on disabilities, but not regulations on obligation to provide physical education for disabled children, who are just 'excused' from PE lessons either for medical reasons or lack of appropriate teacher knowledge, infrastructure or specialised curricula. "Current school PE curricula are totally inadequate for the disabled," he said, highlighting the importance of providing teachers with quality training so that they can understand the physical exercise experience of disabled pupils in mainstream PE lessons.
Professor Hardman also said that physical education needs to be adapted more to disabled individual needs and that competition and winning are given lesser importance. However, 11-time Paralympic gold medalist, Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson, argues that sport ministries should understand that disabled people want to compete as well. In this regard, she highlights the need for more Paralympics funding.
Brigitte Degen from the Commission's DG employment gave an overview of European activities on social integration through sport in the context of the 2007 European Year of Equal Opportunities for All. "Sport as such is not a special subject for the year 2007, but several member states have already indicated that they will be using sport as a means to spread message on diversity and promote equality." Already Finland, Italy and Norway have practices in place implementing sports as the place and means to fight discrimination.
