Sport participation grows in New Zealand schools

Just released New Zealand Secondary Schools Sports Council (NZSSSC) school sport representation census results show that the number of students representing their school in sport continues to grow.

Following years of steady decline the increase has followed the trend established in the last three years, increasing by 1% to 53%.

While the NZSSSC appreciates the growth is small, it highlights that the three year increase represents around an extra 8,000 children representing their school in sport, which it describes as "a pleasing result and testament to the passion and commitment of many people working in the sector principals, teachers, sport co-ordinators (and), Regional Sport Directors."

It also acknowledges that new Government, SportNZ and Regional Sports Trust initiatives, such as Kiwisport, designed to address the previous long term decline in participation have also contributed to the turn around.

The NZSSSC also state "for the first time in over 10 years, the number of teachers involved in school sport did not decline. While it remained steady at 34%, it would be great to think that, as with student participation three years ago, this may represent a turning point.

"It is particularly important that, as participation initiatives begin to take hold and we see more of our students wanting to be involved with sport, we are also able to provide sufficient quality leadership - coaches, mangers and officials.

"While rugby and netball remain the most popular sporting choices for secondary school students with just under 30,000 students pulling on a school jersey in each code, the fastest growing sports in the sector are an indication of the range of options now available for young people.

"Sports which had over 1,000 students involved last year and have had increases in excess of 20% in the past five years include adventure racing, badminton, futsal, gymsports, ki o rahi, orienteering, rugby league, sevens, table tennis, touch, volleyball, waka ama and yachting.

"Regional Sports Directors now have a full set of Regional data and are available to share this with schools, RSOs and others to help guide and inform change in school sport delivery. NZSSSC holds the full set of national data and is also available to work with interested organisations in understanding and using this valuable information."

NZSSSC stresses that this individual school data is not available to anyone except the school.

Summaries of participation by region and by sport, as well as changes over the years for each sport and participation trends of students and teachers are available on the NZSSSC website at www.sportsground.co.nz/nzsssc/71315/1/

Image courtesy of NZSSSC.

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