In response to the development of a diverse and complex society, the Cabinet has been pushing for organizational restructuring of the government. The Sports Administration could also do with a revamp.
The Sports Administration is a third-level government agency under the Executive Yuan’s Ministry of Education. The agency was downgraded from the sports affairs council, which was parallel to the ministry on the same level under the Cabinet.
The council was responsible for Taiwan’s “social sports affairs,” while the ministry was responsible for “school sports affairs,” including sports events for students, as well as curriculum guidelines for physical education (PE).
In 2013, the Cabinet implemented organizational changes, downgrading the second-level council to the third-level agency and adding a new “school sports division.”
This also led to the unification of school and social sports affairs, which are now being coordinated by a single agency, and the back and forth between sports and education authorities has been reduced.
However, since the downgrade, the Sports Administration’s decisionmaking powers, staffing levels and budget — except the Sports Development Fund — have all been reduced.
PE was generally regarded as a part of education, but nowadays, many countries no longer use the term “PE,” gradually replacing it with “sports,” because the overall scope of sports today is much wider, ranging not only from traditional competitions, health and physical-psychological development, but also from the close connections with the business sectors, society, culture, the media and even international relations.
In this new approach, education is only one of the functions of sports.
As the term “PE” has been gradually replaced by “sports,” most of the PE-related courses and departments at colleges and universities in Taiwan have been transforming into sports-related courses and departments to break away from the shackles of education and to echo the diverse development of contemporary sports.
The performance of Taiwanese athletes has been improving, the scale of major professional sports has grown and the development of Taiwan’s sports industry is booming, resulting in complex sports policies, new measures and public affairs.
The framework of the traditional education system is no longer able to satisfy the needs of sports bodies.
Take for example the case of a professional basketball player who last month signed and broke a contract. Despite it being a business dispute between the player and the teams, it highlighted the flaws in the recruitment of professional players and management of sports leagues, and the authorities should help improve such systems, including the management of professional players.
In addition, there have been controversial cases regarding scalping of tickets for sports events, media broadcasts of professional games, labor-capital disputes in sports, venues and facilities, licensed sports merchandise, training and participation in international competitions and funding problems for such events.
With the growth and advancement of the sports sector, more such cases are expected to arise, with all of them outside the system or profession of education.
The Cabinet should adopt a broader, more professional attitude to evaluate the Sports Administration’s upgrade to a ministry to cater for the development of sports affairs.
Upgrading the Sports Administration is necessary, as is upgrading the sports agencies under local governments. Taiwan’s six special municipalities have set up their own sports departments in charge of social sports affairs, while education departments are responsible for school sports affairs — except the Tainan Bureau of Sports, which is responsible for both. Also, five of the special municipalities have placed sports departments in the top administrative level, while the New Taipei City Government is expected to upgrade its Sports Office to the first level next year. By attaching importance to sports affairs, it is evident that they are determined to promote sports locally.
However, it is a completely different story in the 16 other administrative regions. Generally, most decisions on sports policies outside the six special municipalities are made by the “sports and health sections” under their education bureaus, with only a few having specific units for sports affairs — including the Chiayi County Government’s sports section under its education department and the Pingtung County Government’s Sports Development Center.
Meanwhile, their sports stadium units are only responsible for general management of venues and facilities.
As a result, most sports affairs are run by the local education bureau or school systems, while most sports policies are implemented through schools.
However, for social sports affairs that are not run by schools, talent appointment, resource allocation and decisionmaking often receive little attention. This has led to incompatibility between school and social sports affairs in some regions, which is a great pity.
The government’s implementation of administrative affairs should be in line with “modernization,” which is based on science as well as professionalism, and sport is certainly no exception.
In past presidential and legislative elections, some candidates proposed the establishment of a sports ministry, arguing that an administrative body with greater decisionmaking power would manifest the value of sports through professionalism and authorization.
For long-term sports development, Taiwan should improve the structure of the governing system to break through the bottleneck, bringing the country’s sports development to a higher level.
Chang Chia-yu is a local government employee and a former sports journalist.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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