Physical education programme in public primary schools: Analysis of engagement time of pupils in six selected educational circuits

Abstract

Cross sectional survey was used to assess engagement time for teaching and learning PE content in a typical school week in public primary schools. Subjects were 172 out of estimated population of 300 in six randomly sampled educational circuits. Validated and reliable self-structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Pre-data analyses were performed to clean data from probable errors during data entering. All data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS for Windows, Version 17). The study found that the average engagement time of pupils in physical education programme in a typical school week was less than 50% of the total allocated time prescribed on the school time table for public primary schools. Statistically, the study revealed that male and female teachers in public primary schools did not significantly differ in terms of time spent teaching PE programme in a typical school week. Similarly, both upper and lower primary school teachers did not demonstrate statistically significant difference in engagement time of pupils in a typical school week.