HOW THE CYPRUS MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, CULTURE, SPORTS AND YOUTH AND THE CYPRUS OLYMPIC COMMITTEE ENGAGE PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS INTO OLYMPISM

Abstract

Olympic Education is a valued-based educational process and a pedagogical tool, which has in its core the values of Olympism. “Olympic Education” as a term was introduced back in 70’s, while in 1972, during the Munich Olympic Games, the first Olympic Education program was implemented. Nowadays, the implementation of Olympic Education programs varies from one country to another, in terms of the scope, the way of implementation, the frequency and consistency. The purpose of the current study is to find out and present how the primary and secondary education students in Cyprus are being engaged into Olympism aspects through Olympic Educational programs, which are offered by the national Ministry of Education and the NOC. The study also extracts from bibliography the recommended implementation practices for Olympic Education programs, in terms of specific parameters and compares these practices to the way Olympic Education programs are implemented in Cyprus. For the data collection of the research, semi-structured interviews were used and the data collected where analyzed with the qualitative method. The results exulted from the interview as well as the bibliography research results are utilized for providing recommendation for the optimization of the existing Olympic Education programs.