What's the buzz

Updated: 2011-10-31 08:02

(China Daily)

  Print Mail Large Medium  Small 分享按钮 0

A friendly soccer match held between Ditan Elementary School in Beijing and an elementary school in Russia saw the Chinese team defeated 15-nil. Some people put down the defeat to a neglected physical education process in elementary education, but others say it is no big deal and just a kids' game. What's your opinion? China Daily mobile news readers share their views.

On the one hand, it's not necessary to make a fuss over a kids' friendly game. But on the other hand, Chinese sports education should be given more importance. I come from a village in Henan province, and at my primary school there were no quality sports classes at all. I didn't play football until I went to county high school. I strongly feel that more should be invested in children's sports education.

Philip, Huanggang, Hubei province

As long as children enjoy the game and enhance their friendship, the result is actually not that important. The reason why people attach so much importance to this match is that China's national football team performs so badly that people feel the pressure and place too much importance on the results every time it comes to this particular sport. In fact, today's schools already pay attention to physical education, otherwise how would this friendly soccer match be possible?

YUXIAOSHUAI, Luliang, Shanxi province

Though it is merely a match between pupils from China and Russia, it has exposed the relatively weak physique of Chinese children. What we should learn from this failure is the core concept that Chinese elementary education lacks and then how to strengthen this aspect. As the hope of the country, children should be trained and educated to be talented from childhood and a good physique is essential to achieve success.

CUOJUE, Haikou, Hainan province

I have some occasional contact with overseas students, whose physique is indeed better than Chinese people. The reason why China's education has neglected physical training is fundamentally a problem of perception: since physical education has little to do with the college entrance examination, parents, high schools and even students consider it an unwanted burden.

TUZI, Hangzhou, Zhejiang province

The soccer match has revealed the great flaw in China's education: physical training. We advocate comprehensive education, but often neglect physical education under the heavy pressure of exams. I hope the match will arouse enough attention so the problem can be solved before it is too late.

Ma Xiaotao, Tianjin

The incident has been given too much importance. It's only a game! The only thing important is that the children have shed sweat and enjoyed themselves in the process, and we should not lay too much weight upon the results. Of course, we can try to do better on physical education, but let's do not forget our purpose is making children grow up healthily instead of getting better scores in international matches.

Qingdou, Taiyuan, Shanxi province

There are many competitions between children and football is only one of them. The result of one football match is not the only index of children's physical quality, let alone educational results. We should not exaggerate its meaning.

Nohair, Shanghai

(China Daily 10/31/2011 page9)