Table of Contents
Teachers in general and Physical Education (PE) teachers face challenges in the education field due to challenges they have in a teaching environment. More particularly Health Educators and PE teachers have challenges due to high expectations from the parents and community to see excellence in academic activities organized for those two subjects more particularly. Although this serves as the main factor that causes challenges for teachers in that field, there are several other factors that influence teachers to undertake their duties effectively (Veloo & Md-Ali, 2016).
This is because teachers have a wide responsibility in front of them to shape and develop the physical, psychological, cognitive, or mental, social, and health aspects of the students. The school puts stress on educational workers, especially teachers to develop and execute skillful and cognitive development programs to meet the school’s educational objectives as well as expectations of the community (Jourdan, 2011).
PE and Health education to students is important in different grades since it contributes to student’s physical and cognitive development. Through PE activities students learn to transform knowledge, values, and skills that are essential for their personal development (Wanyama, 2011).
There are many essential lessons students can learn from PE and health education in the school environment to develop themselves. Moreover, Health and PE education in the school environment enables students to develop their personality and ability to function more effectively.
Schools and educational institutes stress more on health and PE education since it is one of the main concerns of parents and the community to see a healthy and physically efficient young generation. According to Oudat(2016), people’s health and physical activeness in life highly reflect on how actively they engage in PE and health-related activities in their school life. Therefore, physical activeness and the health consciousness of individuals during the time of education widely reflect on a person’s life once they face challenges in the community.
Results
From the research carried out, it is understood that one of the key challenge teachers face in facilitating PE and health education to contemporary classrooms include the availability of resources and lack of teaching and learning materials.
According to Rainer, Cropley, Jarvis, and Griffiths (2012), the majority of schools have difficulties in finding qualified teachers for the role of PE instructor and health education provider due to numerous challenging factors. For example, the salary provided in school is lesser compared to what fitness instructors or PE teachers can make if they work in a gym or fitness center.
The availability of machines, equipment, resources, and space to carry out PE activities is one of the key reasons why qualified PE teachers are not willing to work in the education field. And, for health workers or health education providers, they are reluctant to work in the education field because they do not have an environment where they can efficiently carry out tasks and facilitate education due to lack of facilities and resources available in the school.
Although the modern learning environment includes most of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), that is not sufficient for health educators to facilitate lessons to the classroom since health education requires plenty of classroom activities and practical activities to enable students to understand the topic and achieve learning objectives intended from the subject.