Physical education and sports facilities

This year, ASER introduced a series of questions on the availability of sports infrastructure in schools:

• Access to Playground:

In 2018, about 8 out of 10 schools had a playground available for students, either within the school premises or close by. A playground was accessible in more than 90% of schools in Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, and Maharashtra. But more than a quarter of all schools in Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar, Odisha, and Jharkhand did not have access to a playground.

• Physical education teachers are scarce in schools across rural India:

Only 5.8% of all primary schools and 30.8% of upper primary schools had a physical education teacher available. In majority of schools, another teacher was tasked with supervising physical education activities as well. But in Haryana, Rajasthan and Kerala, the proportion of schools with a physical education teacher is significantly higher than the national average.

• Availability of sports equipment:

Sports equipment of some kind was observed in 55.8% of primary schools and 71.5% of upper primary schools. States where significantly higher proportions of schools had sports equipment available included Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh.