The General Office of the Ministry of Education (MOE) released an official statement, announcing that eight schools have been stripped of the title of “Specialized Football Schools” after the reassessment of these schools’ teaching quality while another 29 Specialized Football Schools were also required to improve their standards.

In 2015, the MOE planned that 20,000 primary and middle schools would have a football education curriculum by 2020. By the end of 2016, 13,381 schools had been endorsed with the title of Specialized Football Schools and as the China Education Daily reported, the MOE achieved their goal at the end of 2017 (20,218 in total) with the ministry adding that 6,837 schools had become Specialized Football Schools in 2017. 

As the Chinese legal newspaper The Mirror reported, the MOE plans to introduce a new football education curriculum into more than 30,000 primary and middle schools by 2025. Meanwhile, 50 new football training academies will also be rolled out around China in 2018.  

In order to improve the teaching quality within the 13,381 Specialized Football Schools confirmed in 2015 and 2016, the MOE kicked off a reassessment project in May 2017 and decided to formally disentitle 8 schools. Another 29 Specialized Football Schools were also required to make some changes to improve their teaching quality. 

The MOE also emphasized in the statement that the reassessment of teaching quality of these Specialized Football Schools will take place every year. 

Source: www.gov.cn

Proofread by Raymond Fitzpatrick