Teaching swimming to school children a good initiative

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A NEWS item in national dailies early this week said the government has decided to make swimming mandatory for all school children in order to reduce the number of deaths from drowning. We highly appreciate the move of the Education Ministry in view of the fact that this deficiency to learn swimming in childhood often turn out to be fatal later in life. This practice is already carried out in different developed countries, including the UK and Australia. The report said that drowning in floodwater run Bangladesh is the leading killer of children overtaking diseases such as diarrhoea and pneumonia.
According to the report, the Education Ministry has already finalized the circular on making swimming mandatory for all school-going students and letters will be sent to school authorities soon. Further information showed a study by the Centre for Injury Prevention and Research, Bangladesh (CIPRB) highlighted that every year 18 thousand children die from drowning where hundreds of rivers and canals have crisscrossed the countryside. So it is urgent to have mandatory training of swimming for school children to help them save their life. The school authorities will decide where and how the students will be provided with training in swimming all over the country. However, school authorities in Dhaka may have an arrangement with city swimming pools, as there is a scarcity of rivers, canals and ponds in the capital city.
Our newspaper had previously suggested that Bangladesh government must take steps to prevent ‘deaths by drowning’ after a research conducted by The Alliance for Safe Children (in collaboration with UNICEF’s Office of Research in Bangladesh) showed that one of every four children’s deaths are resulting from drowning. This alarming number is a lot more than the number of children who die from measles, polio, whooping cough, tetanus, diphtheria and tuberculosis combined. We believe that swimming and immunization should be free services offered by the government as they help communities keep children healthy and safe.
We believe it is a timely move by the government, as it will probably save thousands of lives. But we also voice our concerns at the same time saying mere making of policy does not mean that it will be easy to implement. The government and schools’ management will face many problems in teaching children swimming on such a large scale as most schools do not have pools and accessible water bodies with quality water for children to go into. Proper swimming teachers are also required and the dismal state of public pools needs to change, as it is a significant factor considering how proper hygiene is important. The problem is that our schools barely have the infrastructure required for swimming as swimming pools are still a luxury, in schools and financially difficult to afford as well. Hence the decision may remain a far dream unless adequate infrastructure has been created and teachers and keepers are trained for the purpose. But it is a definitely good initiative to reckon with.

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