Putin proposes sport as criterion for evaluating schools and universities

President Vladimir Putin proposed using sport as a criterion for evaluating the work of kindergartens, schools and universities in Russia. “We should revisit approaches to physical training and organise it as a comprehensive, effective and modern system. And we must start with key participants in this process – the heads of educational institutions and education boards,” Putin said at a meeting on the development of children’s sport on Wednesday, March 13. In his opinion, it is necessary to “provide incentives and at the same time determine responsibilities” for the heads of educational institutions depending on their attitude towards sport. He believes that this indicator “must be taken into account when evaluating the efficiency of educational institutions.” “In this case the directors of kindergartens and schools will seek to ensure that every child plays sport,” the president added. Putin also called for reviving the GTO (Ready for Labour and Defence of the USSR) in a new format. He thinks it may prove beneficial in present-day Russia. “It would be appropriate to remember the positive experience of the past when there was the GTO system in our country.” Putin said. “It can be called different names, but using a bureaucratic abbreviation would be the least choice,” the president said. He believes it necessary to engage the general public in “the search for the name to make it attractive.” Ready for Labour and Defence of the USSR, abbreviated as GTO, was the All-Union physical culture training programme, introduced in the former Soviet Union on March 11, 1931. It was a complement to the Unified Sports Classification System of the USSR. While the latter provided Soviet physical education system requirements only for athletes, GTO was a programme for all Soviet people of almost all ages. By the year 1976, 220 million people were awarded GTO badges, while in 1986 the tests were passed by 33.9 million people.