Tens of thousands of young women and
men at college can look forward to improved sporting opportunities
thanks to new National Lottery funding from Sport
England.
£17 million of investment will fund 150 new
jobs for full-time sports professionals to act as College Sport
Makers over the next five years, helping students to get involved
in sport.
Colleges across the country were today given
the go-ahead to recruit the first 117 sports professionals after
successfully bidding for support from Sport England.
Further education (college) students play the
least sport of young people aged 16 and over who are in education.
Research shows that around 65% of school pupils aged 16 and over do
sport at least once a week, compared to 53% of higher education
students and 50% of college students.
Participation is lower among young women than
men at college so the new workers will have a specific remit to
ensure the sporting opportunities are attractive to young women and
are marketed effectively to them.
The announcement was welcomed by Maria Miller,
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, who said:
“Following the success and enthusiasm generated by the
summer, I am determined to keep up the momentum of the Olympic and
Paralympic Games and get more people playing sport. Raising
participation levels among young people is absolutely crucial. This
£20 million investment from the National Lottery will help do
exactly that, getting more students in colleges up and down the
country involved in sport. It will also create 150 new jobs,
and these 'College Sport Makers' will make a real difference in
helping young people develop a sporting habit for life."
Richard Lewis, Chair of Sport England, said:
“Too many teenagers drop out of sport when they leave school, as it
gets squeezed by competing demands like studying, work and
relationships. We want College Sport Makers to remind young people
how much fun sport is and to help them build it into their
schedules so they develop a sporting habit for life.”
College Sport Makers will help individual
sports to market their opportunities to students as well as linking
colleges with community sports clubs, running leagues and sports
groups and offering coaching for certain sports. Every College
Sport Maker will be expected to help hundreds of students to make
sport a bigger part of their lives.
One of the roles will be at Exeter College,
whose Head of Faculty for Sport, Leisure & Tourism, Peter
Chapman, said: “This is fantastic news for the students of Exeter
College. The investment will enable us to make a huge difference in
what we are able to provide for all of our learners, a much wider
and increased choice of sports positively contributing to the aim
of increasing the levels of physical activity within our college
population.”
Sport England also today invited colleges
across the country to bid for a share of £3 million of additional
funding to improve the sport they’re able to offer. Grants of
between £30,000 and £150,000 will be offered to help colleges to
run new sport projects. This money could pay for equipment to
introduce new sports at a college, the cost of running new leagues,
facility hire for students from colleges that don’t have facilities
or transport to get students to sessions.
The Association of Colleges’ Head of Sport
Policy, Clare Howard, said: “There has always been a strong
tradition of sport in colleges but this new funding brings much
needed extra capacity. This will allow us to really build on the
momentum created by London 2012 and provide new, and different
sporting opportunities for a greater number of college
students.
“We are delighted about the funding from Sport
England to create new sports development posts in colleges and
hopefully inspire a new generation of athletes.”
The investment is part of Sport England’s
five-year £1 billion Youth and Community Strategy that aims to
continue the growth in sports participation that has seen the
number of people playing sport every week reach 15.28 million, an
increase of 1.3 million since 2005/6.
To find out which colleges have received funding, click
here.