West Midlands MEP hails education through sport initiative

12.00.00am GMT Thu 19th Dec 2002

Sport is a valuable educational tool which can teach children about teamwork, solidarity, tolerance and fair play, according to a report passed in the European Parliament today.

The European Parliament voted to declare 2004 as the European Year of Education through Sport, to coincide with the upcoming Olympics in Athens and the European Football Championship in Portugal.

The report calls for schools and sporting organisations to work together to develop a programme of meetings, competitions and events to promote the importance of sport as an educational tool. This will be backed up by a fund of €11.5m by the EU, while the UK and other countries will be expected to provide funding of their own.

Liberal Democrat MEP Liz Lynne has already got the ball rolling. Last week she hosted a conference in the European Parliament on the theme of disabled people and sport in her role as Vice Chair of the All Party Intergroup on Disability and Liberal Democrat sports spokesperson. The conference discussed how sport could be used as a way of challenging stereotypes and promoting integration of disabled people.

2003 is the European Year of People with Disabilities, for which Liz served as Rapporteur in the Parliament.

Commenting on the theme for 2004, Liz said "One of the major themes of the education through sport year will be to encourage reflection and discussion on what needs to be done to promote the social integration of the disadvantaged groups through sport, and with my special interest in disabled people's rights, I am keen to see progress on this."

On a related note, the UK government has come in for criticism this week after the National Playing Fields Association attacked Labour's failure to reverse the Conservative policy of selling off school playing fields. Despite pledging to halt the sale of playing fields, planning authorities have allowed 195 out of 201 applications for fields to be sold off to go ahead.

"The UK will be the subject of ridicule if the mass sale of school playing fields has not been reversed by 2004. Despite paying lip service to the importance of sport in schools, Labour's record tells another story," Liz added.