Physical Education and Sports Teaching for the Disabled: Requirements and a Program Model

With the fundamental changes in social life brought about by industrialization, sports have expanded its area of function as an important means to self-expression, self-realization and self-improvement and become a phenomenon concerning every portion of the society. By this nature, the domain of the concept of sports has a very wide spectrum defined based on difference of gender, age and performance groups, illnesses and the types and levels of disabilities, living and working conditions and on psychological expectations. These new dimensions and functions which sports acquired in the social life necessitate the education and training of sports personnel which can meet the needs of fields requiring specialization. The most important areas requiring specialization are the disabled portion of the society which constitutes almost 12% of the society having problems with finding qualified personnel who can organize sportive activities in and out of school based on the types and levels of disabilities. The problem was brought up in Sports Council 2008 and the council decided on the education and training of physical education teachers and trainers for disabled individuals. In addition, there is no program designed to educate and train physical education teachers and trainers in Turkey. However, the improvement of the life quality of disabled individuals, the realization of their integration and rehabilitation can only be achieved by providing qualified manpower well-informed and well-equipped in the field of sportive conditions and facilities specific to each disability group. Therefore the establishment of a higher education institution educating and training physical education teachers and trainers for the disabled stands out as a necessity considering the extent of the disabled population which exhibits a wide variety. Consequently and from the point of view of contemporary models; the physical education and sports teaching program for the disabled” which can be implemented in sports higher education institutions in our country suitable for the concept of training teachers and with the sufficient physical infrastructure and qualified teaching personnel is suggested by this study with justifications.