Football has been included in the catalog of undergraduate majors this year and is distributed in 30 universities across the country——
Football enters undergraduate program for the first time to explore new paths for talent training
Our reporter Liu Bing
Recently, the Ministry of Education released the "Results of the Registration and Approval of a New Batch of Undergraduate Majors in General Universities", and football has become one of the new undergraduate majors this year. The football major belongs to the physical education category, with a study period of 4 years. The degree-granting category is education. The universities are deployed in 30 universities including Beijing Sport University, Shanghai Sport University, Hohai University, and Jiangsu Normal University.
It is understood that in the past, Chinese universities only set up football specialties under the physical education major and sports training major. The main training target was physical education teachers and coaches with football expertise. This is the first time that football has been included in undergraduate majors, which makes many people in the education and sports circles happy. They said that this measure will not only help improve the training level of domestic football professionals, but also hope to lay the foundation for the long-term development of Chinese football through the power of education.
Famous football commentator Zhang Lu believes that the direct impact of incorporating football into undergraduate majors is to broaden the options for young people who practice football, and it has a positive motivating effect on parents to support their children in playing football.
"Many parents believe that as long as their children cannot become professional players, playing football is a waste of time. Only by opening up the channels for students who are talented in football or children who love playing football and giving them the opportunity to go to college can we solve the parents' worries about letting their children play football. ." Zhang Lu said that only when more and more primary and secondary school students play football can China's football population truly expand, and the promotion and popularization of football will not become an empty talk.
According to the reporter's understanding, the number of middle school students who have obtained first- and second-level athlete grade certificates has increased significantly in recent years, but the number of students admitted to individual sports is limited, and the admission rate in 2021 and 2022 is only around 20%. The addition of a new football major will allow more children who are engaged in football training to have the opportunity to enter colleges and universities. It is worth mentioning that after football is included as an undergraduate major, the selection of football talents will no longer be limited to students with sports specialties, and the channels for football talent training can be effectively broadened.
According to Zhang Defan, the youth training coach of Yanbian Longding Football Club, the football major was established based on the market’s demand for talents with specific skills. "As the football industry continues to develop, the demand for related talents is also increasing. Students who choose football majors will have more opportunities to enter football clubs, educational institutions, media and other fields to engage in coaching, refereeing, reporting or football-related operations management jobs, their career paths are broader.”
It is estimated that the first 30 universities to establish undergraduate football courses can recruit more than 1,000 football majors every year. In this regard, Yu Zhenhai, the youth training coach of Nantong Zhiyun Football Club, said that the number of youth training coaches in some areas is still insufficient, and most of the coaches are retired players. "Although they have excellent football skills, their cultural knowledge is generally weak, and they are incompatible with teenagers." Their communication skills are also relatively lacking. In the future, talents trained by football professionals can effectively solve this problem."
After football is included in undergraduate majors, how universities can better integrate sports and education in the future and cultivate professional football talents has also become a topic of concern.
In 2016, the Ministry of Education proposed for the first time to encourage and support qualified colleges and universities to establish high-level football teams. However, after several years, the number of high-level football teams formed by domestic universities has not increased, and the number of athletes has even declined instead of rising. In this regard, Liu Bo, director of the Department of Physical Education at Tsinghua University, believes that the new undergraduate major in football can cope with the problem of declining student sources after the enrollment requirements for high-level sports teams in colleges and universities have increased in recent years.
High-level team building is inseparable from high-level football events. The reporter learned that our country’s colleges and universities currently lack a high-level and wide-ranging football league. In this regard, Zhang Defan suggested that as more professional talents join, a high-quality college football league should be gradually organized starting from 30 universities offering football majors. "Through popularization and the construction of a competition system, more college students can participate in football leagues, use games to promote training, and use games to promote training, so that more outstanding competitive sports talents can be discovered."
However, including football as an undergraduate major also faces some challenges and problems. According to industry insiders, how to ensure the scientificity and rationality of professional settings and how to balance the relationship between professional learning and sports training are worthy of serious consideration. Therefore, colleges and universities should fully consider the above factors when setting up football majors, and formulate scientific and complete teaching plans and training programs to ensure that students can develop comprehensively and possess professional football skills and corresponding qualities.
On the other hand, how to promote effective employment of students who choose football majors is a more realistic issue. Due to the current low level of development of football in our country, and there is a certain time lag between the establishment of majors and market changes, if the employment situation is not ideal, students may be less enthusiastic about choosing football majors in the future.
In this regard, Zhong Bingshu, a professor at the Capital Institute of Physical Education, believes that the inclusion of football as an undergraduate major is a positive move that will help break through the traditional path and explore a new professional football talent training mechanism. In the long run, colleges and universities related to football majors must clarify their professional positioning and training goals, "think clearly about what kind of talents they want to cultivate, reverse the utilitarian tendency of education, mobilize the autonomy of each college, and strive to cultivate talents that meet market needs." of diverse football talent”. (Worker Daily)