抄録
After Tokyo’s successful bid for the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2013, the Olympic and Paralympic education programme has been provided at schools nationwide by the central and local governments to promote the Olympic and Paralympic Movements. This education programme is also expected to be an intangible legacy of the Games beyond 2020.
The purpose of this study is to find out what is needed for the Paralympic education programme to take root in schools as a legacy. For this purpose, the authors analyzed the questionnaire survey results from 1,077 elementary schools, 635 middle schools and 67 schools for special needs education in Tokyo and Chiba Prefecture.
Findings indicate that more than 80 percent of the schools carried out the Paralympic education programme, and that the majority of teachers felt positive about its educational effectiveness. However, the results also reveal that there are many difficulties in the implementation of the programme, such as lack of class hours and time to prepare for newly introduced programmes, budget constraints, and adaptation to annual school plans. These results support previous reports that teachers are struggling with a difficult situation caused by too many tasks and responsibilities.
To continue Paralympic education beyond the Tokyo Games, rather than the current top-down approach, it should accommodate the current school system so that it can be incorporated without becoming a burden to schools. For this, there is an urgent need to raise teachers’ awareness that Paralympic education could play an important role not only to enhance the momentum of the Games, but also to raise awareness of the notion of an inclusive society, which is an ultimate goal of the Paralympics.
