Impact of Exercising Sports during Childhood and Adolescence on Educational Attainment: The positive impact of sports on educational development

Abstract

Sport is an attractive and vital activity for youngsters. It helps in the holistic development of young people, fostering their physical, social and emotional health. The benefits of sport reach beyond the impact on physical well-being and the value of the educational benefit of sport should not be underestimated. Physical Education and sport have their own impact on education. There are some direct positive effects of sport on educational productivity. They are: The better health status of athletes could increase productivity and lead to more investments in human capital. Sport teaches soft skills like taking orders, leadership, teamwork, performing in a regulated system, and socialization. Sport can help to form the character of young people because it teaches behavioural habits like motivation, discipline, tenacity, competitive spirit, responsibility, perseverance, confidence, and self-esteem, which cannot always be acquired in classroom. These behavioural aspects should lead to reduced truancy, increase the willingness to succeed in school, and encourage social interaction with other students, which are associated with higher efficiency. Through sport we learn about importance of key values such as honesty, teamwork, fair play, respect for themselves and others and adherence to rules. We will develop sportive attitude and learn how to cope with winning and losing. The rate of return to sports might be larger for women than for men because sport activities may enhance the capability of being successful in a male-dominated society. The higher competitiveness and self-esteem of female athletes can be essential to assert themselves and to compete with men in the classroom. This shows the positive relationship between being involved in physical activities and psychological development. Here in this paper we analyze the impact of exercising sports during childhood and adolescence on educational attainment. We can find strong evidence that the effect of sport on educational attainment is statistically significant and positive. Thus we can say that sports helps in overall development of the personality and in building strong characters and strong nation.