Editor-in-Chief Georges Mghames English Editor Kenneth Mortimer ...

The effects could even be more striking than those in
France. The main Lebanese schools that have adopted
the French baccalaureate are Notre-Dame of Jamhour,
Frères Mont-La-Salle, Frères Maristes Champville,
Collège Protestant, Grand Lycée Franco-Libanais, and
Lazaristes Aintoura. These have a syllabus for Physical
Education and Sports, adaptable to all the classes
following the physiological development of the body.
The establishment of Physical Education and Sports in
the Lebanese Baccalaureate will surely oblige Lebanese
schools to set up an appropriate curriculum for sport.
If only half of the 16,000 to 20,000 students who pass
the Lebanese Baccalaureate exam every year undergo
a Physical Education and Sports test over a period of
ten years, we shall have 80,000 students that have
followed a Physical Education and Sports curriculum in
their education. This number is more than five times
higher than the mere 15,000 resulting from ten years of
French Baccalaureate exams. This will develop the sport
culture in all the Lebanese schools. These educational
establishments will be then much more ‘equipped’ to
participate in competitive sports.
Incidentally, school instructors should pay special
attention to helping children who, from lack of
home environment, space or companionship, are
weak in all forms of play and sport and who are
therefore most in need of help.
This introduction will establish favorable conditions
for the soon-to- be-created Lebanese School Sport
Federation encompassing all schools in the country
and lead to mass participation of the youth of both
sexes. It will promote competitive sport in the different
provinces and therefore end the centralization that
monopolizes sport in the country.
The development of schools competitions can also lead
to less sectarianism in Lebanese society. Talk about
the 1975-1900 conflict is still taboo, showing the lack
of true reconciliation. This separation is also found
in sport, where each federation belongs to a certain
community. With the current situation of Lebanese
sport, youth tend to go to a sport where they will
play with persons of their own communities. But
with competitions opposing schools from all over the
country, sport will reach students from all the religious
groups. Young people will learn to compete with
and against each other in a neutralized environment;
sport will encourage national coexistence that may,
hopefully, lead to a future ‘true’ reconciliation among
all the Lebanese religious communities.
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This measure will also promote the development of
coaching diplomas and graduate Physical Education-
and Sports-related programs. Indeed, the establishment
of Physical Education and Sports in the schools
curriculum will create a demand for Physical Education
and Sports teachers and coaches. This will ‘force’ all
the universities not already having a Physical Education
and Sports program (the University of Balamand, the
Lebanese University, the Antonine University and
Notre-Dame University are exceptions) to develop
Physical Education- and Sports-related programs and to
increase the very low number of Physical Education and
Sports scholars.
The greater number of aspiring physical educators and
coaches will also inspire the universities to promote
different Physical Education and Sports sections and
research programs in sport physiology, biomechanics,
nutrition, motor function and management. Sport
management studies will give Lebanese sport a muchneeded
asset, namely PES graduates having managerial
skills, knowing both sport science fundamentals and
business principles and able to run the different
Lebanese associations and federations away from
the prevailing corruption. In other words, although
there is no scientific approach to stopping corruption,
which depends on the ethics of those in authority, the
development of sport management programs will send
to the market PES graduates who have the ‘know-how’
to reduce the impact of this cancer of Lebanese sport.
Establishing Physical Education and Sports as a
compulsory subject is one of the many measures that
could promote sport in Lebanon, but first the Lebanese
government, very “shy” when it comes to sport, must
become aware of the advantages that sport could offer
to Lebanese society.