?Leveling the Playing Field? is a two part series based on Brad McCarroll?s 18 year career as a teacher, sports administrator / consultant, Director of Mutual Sport,?as well as observations as a community volunteer coach for the past five years. Contributing to this series is Anne Bunde Birouste, the founder of Football United with over 25 years of international practice, policy and advocacy work, focusing on health and development and working with vulnerable populations.
?This series will span over two weeks on Sports Business Insider, with Part One detailing the evidence on why the Australian sport system does not ?level the playing field?, contributions to the participation barriers, and why sport and physical education in schools is not improving the situation.
Does the Australian Sport System ?level the playing field??
No! The Australian sport system does not ?level the playing field?! With at least half of the Australia population not engaged with the system? how can it? Consider these facts taken from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and the Exercise, Recreation and Sport Survey (ERASS):
- 2.7 million children and young people aged 5-24, (approx. 50% of that population) in Australia have NO involvement or minimal engagement with organised sport.
- 0.6 % is the approximate annual growth rate in organised sport for children aged 5-14 outside of school hours from 2003 to 2012 (in 2003, 1.6 million children participated while in 2012, this figure was 1.7 million children (ABS)).
Compounding these statistics, the community sport system is shrinking, its volunteer workforce is strained and diminishing and the quality of school based sport and physical education is variable (at best). Policy, funding and powerful stakeholders drive an in-equitable distribution of resources in the Australian sport system that is contributing to widening the gap in society rather than utilising sport as one of the simplest and best ways of ?leveling the playing field?. Unfortunately those not engaged with the system are the ones who, arguably, would benefit the most from array of social outcomes sport can provide. Unless significant governance, structural and cross-government approaches are developed this trend will continue to reduce the size of the talent pool sports recruit their elite athletes from while negatively impacting Australian society as a whole.
The fact is the 50% non-participants are more likely to be from multicultural, non-English speaking and/or Indigenous backgrounds; live in a single parent households; live in a low Socio-economic areas; are unemployed or have an unemployed parent; and / or are female. The less resources, social capital and English language proficiency you and your family possess the less likely it is you will be involved in community based sport. If you are ?disadvantaged? and you are not an exceptional sportsperson your opportunity to play club sport is restricted.
?Engaging grassroots and community? is a popular ?catch cry? for many leaders in sport administration, government, and the corporate sector ? however, the aforementioned statistics make it extremely difficult see what, if any, industry wide impact current policy, funding and practices are having on grassroots and communities. Even more shocking is that there is no evidence that the additional resources brought into sport through astronomical television deals, government funding (including poker machine money), and corporate sponsorships over the past decade is having any impact on improving participation rates.
This issue was highlighted in? the 2009 Crawford (Sport Panel) Report into the state of play in the Australian Sport System: ?The missing half? (sport and physical activity non-participants) has become a formidable policy challenge. If sport contributes to the nation?s health and community cohesion, a key task for sports policy makers and administrators is to address the factors and? the barriers that prevent participation.?
I think we all agree that sport, for all of its positive values and social, health and education benefits it can drive, should be made accessible for EVERYONE. What is going wrong and more importantly what has to be done?
Why should we be concerned about this?
Consider this excerpt quoted from a number of government submission made on behalf of Football United? since 2010 ?? gaps in participation both in clubs and at schools -translate to gaps in opportunity, which if not addressed, result in issues of disaffection in society (leaving school, aggressive behaviour, unemployment etc). Misunderstanding of newly arrived immigrants and different cultures often translates further to racism??and the ensuing problems it provokes.? (Anne Bunde- Birouste, Founder of Football United)
Sport when designed and implemented appropriately can play a role in addressing these issues however the community sport system is not designed to do so nor can it be systemically re-designed to do so. This was recently demonstrated by Football United in its 2012 Research Report.
The fact is that the Australian sport system with its funding and governance structure is driven toward 2 outcomes:
- Elite pathway and athlete development to ensure the stocks of our high achieving athletes and teams are continually replenished
- Enabling those children and families ?inside the tent? to participate for all of the health, community and social benefits. As the Crawford report indicates those inside the tent ?are made up mostly of children from middleclass backgrounds,?..because participation requires adequate disposable income to pay for fees, uniforms, equipment and transport.? (Crawford 2009)
There is constant rhetoric and some evidence across all levels of the system about how sport can play a role in ?leveling the playing field? by: addressing social cohesion and inclusion; building the capacity of communities; engaging youth; improving educational outcomes; ?improving health and overcoming obesity. With so many Australian?s of all ages unable to access the system ? there is next to no possibility of driving these outcomes at a systemic level. In general, participation multiple times per week in multiple sports, that will drive health and social benefit, requires 2 engaged parents, car/s and thousands of dollars of disposable income for fees, uniforms and travel, and a deep ongoing commitment across 6 -12 month periods.
Why is the participation rate so low?
There are a wide range of factors contributing to this very low participation rate in community based sport mostly stemming from the fact that Australian society has changed dramatically over the past 40 years through population growth, multiculturalism, technological development, changing work patterns and family dynamics. The community sport system is still structured and delivered the same way as 30-40 years ago. The product has not changed, yet the market has. This is fine for those of us who played their sport within these structures ? however if you have none or little experience or knowledge of the community sport system engaging with it and its stringent processes, regulations, fees and commitment levels required, it is extremely daunting and confusing and a barrier that many obviously do not overcome. Over time this has become more and more reliant on a ?user pays? model designed keep various layers of the system financially viable.
Compounding this is complexity. Complexity of family life combined with the complexity of running community sport clubs. For any family engaging with all of the sporting commitments each week is a massive challenge let alone for families with one income, involved in shift work, have limited transport options, limited understanding of the language and/or simply trying to engage with societies other institutions.
From the perspective of the community club ? why / how should it be expected that the dedicated volunteers be the ones who change what they do or take on more work to be able to cater for an influx of new participants. The facts are that across the community sport sector the number of people volunteering is decreasing and the number of people volunteering for the ?core? roles of club administration is getting less and less. Furthermore, many clubs and associations are turning people away because they are close to capacity in terms of their facilities and human resources ? how can they cater for a drastic increase in participation rates should the government and national bodies design and implement successful engagement strategies. This complex set of factors means that?through no fault of its own?the mainstream community sport industry cannot deal with the even more complex set of circumstances that are characteristic of diverse and disadvantaged communities ie ? those that make up the majority of the non-participation rate.
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Sport and Physical Education in schools
It would be re-assuring to say that all of the children who do not participate in community sport have their physical activity and sport participation requirements catered for by their schools. Unfortunately, it is highly likely that the same 50% of children and young people not engaged in community sport will be the same children missing out on high quality sport participation opportunities at school. The quality of sport and physical education being offered ? particularly in government primary schools, is dependent on whether a child is lucky enough to have a classroom teacher with the skills, confidence and motivation to run high quality PE classes or whether a school has the foresight to recruit PE trained teachers and spread their services across the school.
Compounding this is the fact that inter-school sport is likely to only cater for the kids that can play their sport well and have financial means to engage with the talent pathway ie the same ?in the tent? students who likely play sport out of school hours. ?With the increasing average age of teachers, increasing bureaucratic process around risk management and taking children outside of school and an increasingly crowded curriculum ?quality sport and physical education becomes less and less of a priority. Many schools that have high proportions of disadvantaged children and youth that would benefit from high quality sport programs are opting out of inter-school sport due to these issues. Exceptions to this include primary schools in more affluent areas that can outsource a large portion of their physical education program to private providers and the private schools that integrate sport participation into their entire school and community life.
Overarching this is the confusing and variable collaboration between State and Federal departments of education, sport and recreation agencies and the Australian Sports Commission as well as poor relationships between sporting bodies and the education sector. Who should be taking responsibility for this area? ?Schools must be the central focus to increasing the participation rate because this is where the 2+ million non-participating children and youth are, and sport and physical education is part of the curriculum. Sport when organised and delivered well in schools can become a central focus of school spirit and cohesion. The research of Football United highlights the positive impact on ?pro-social behaviour? and ?peer related problems? in schools in which it runs programs while Rugby Youth Foundation has evidence of the improvements in school engagement for youth due to its programs. We know that when schools with high proportions of the ?non-participants? referred to above, are offered specially designed sport programs that drive social outcomes? they jump on the opportunity because they know and understand the impact the program can have on educational engagement, inclusion and cohesion within their school.
Further, the impact of Australian Government?s Active After-School Communities (AASC) must be queried. Apparently there is evidence of its ability to engage (short-term) those unlikely to be engaged in club sport. It is an inflexible approach to delivering sport to a select group of children?those in paid and select after-school care?and falls short of addressing the participation needs of disadvantaged communities.
Developing neighbourhood programs, re-building schools? systems, and training teachers are crucial to addressing the physical activity needs and interests of children, youth and families from diverse and disadvantaged backgrounds, enabling them to overcome their limited resources and better engage with educational and social systems (Crawford, Centre for Multicultural Youth Issues, Australian Sports Commission).
Continuing next week this report will look at the challenges sporting bodies face in overcoming the barriers to participation; the role that social responsibility should play in the industry; how ?development through sport? organisations are better placed to offer equitable opportunities and a set of recommendations on moving the industry forward to reduce the barriers to participation.
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Source: http://sportsbusinessinsider.com.au/news/category/community-sport/leveling-the-playing-field-part-1/
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