Promoting Physical Education

Several campaigns and exhibitions to boost students’ physical education (PE) literacy are underway in schools at all levels across the country.  “The awareness raising campaign conducted by the Health Ministry’s Education Office are in line with the National Self-Care Program which is the fifth goal of the 2014 Health Reform Plan,” said Dr. Shahram Rafiei, director general of the office. Edifying and engaging programs including festivals, posters, and exhibitions titled ‘tobacco-free district’, ‘healthy life with healthy hearts’, ‘healthy diet station,’ and ‘healthy teenager’ are being held for 13 million students. Stressing the importance of physical education on par with reading and writing skills, he said all school curriculums have been updated with brochures on healthy lifestyle tips, Mehr News Agency reported. Additionally, on-the-job training workshops on health have been conducted for 100,000 teachers in 2015, and for 270,000 more in the past Iranian year (ended March 20) while 1.2 million students have been trained as health promoters since two years. Physical education in primary schools accounts for 99 minutes of the weekly curriculum, and 90 minutes in middle school. The time allocated for PE in high schools is expected to increase to 90 minutes from the current 60 for 11th grade (penultimate grade) in the next academic year (begins September). A full hour per week will also be added to the curriculum of high school seniors who didn’t previously have PE.