Now, textbooks come into play in Physical Education

CHENNAI: In a first, the school education department is set to introduce physical education textbooks for classes 1 to 12 from the next academic year. For more than 10 years, physical education teachers in the state have urged the department to provide structured learning materials, arguing that an essential subject contributing to students’ overall development is being taught without textbooks. R Jayadevan, state president of the Graduate Physical Education Teacher Association, said, “It has been a long-pending demand of physical education teachers to provide textbooks for all classes. Currently, there are only around 5,000 physical education teacher and director posts in the state, while there are approximately 6,000 government high and higher secondary schools, according to T Devi Selvam of the Tamil Nadu Physical Education Teachers and Directors Association. He noted that in July 2024, the school education department increased the student-to-physical education teacher ratio to 700 from the existing 250 to 400 students per teacher through a government order.