University athletic departments should receive the same amount of funding as university libraries. |
After 2002 WorldCup, Koreans were starting to pay attention to physical activities, such as soccer. However, are we put the same value on these sports as on academic knowledge? Korea's mental base is Confucianism, which emphasizes on scholastic accomplishments and Koreans are likely to treat sports as a pleasant diversion at best. Therefore, many Koreans would say that making universities to spend the same amount of money in exersise as in libraries in unappropriate. For the sake of students' physical health and social development, however, the arguement insisted by the author seems supportive.
To enhance students' health, investment on sports should be increases. In Korea, high schools force their students to take physical activity course and they held athletic meetings annually. It helps students to be aware of the importance of sports. These education help students to be prepared to compete in this dog-eat-dog world because not only academic knowledge is needed in this world to survive but also physical health is needed. Unfortunately, Korean universities just concentrate on educating academic facts and do not provide their students to be more competitive by boosting their physical abilities.
In socialogical view, students are able to learn cooperation which is definitely needed in this aggressive society. As society is getting fiercer, it is getting harder to learn unity. However, since Korea is a small country, mentally based on Confucianism, relationships betwwen person and person is undoubtedly important. Koreans are likely to think they are a team. Therefore, living in Korea, students should be taught about teamwork. Universities should take sports as sociology education, and put th esame money as libraries.
In a word, universities' sports departments should be given the same amount of money because sports can help students to be more competitive in this fierce society due to the fact that it assists students to be more healtier and learn cooperation. |