The study conducted by EduSports involving 20,000 children across the country states nearly 61 per cent of stu­dents do not possess adequate skills for sports – about 48 per cent of them are not good at running and 71 per cent are unable to throw an object or catch it properly. 

The study covering 73 schools across 39 cities, including Bangalore, Mangalore and Manipal in Karnataka, during the academic year 2010-2011 said children were growing up without the fundamental skills needed for sports. This covers locomotor skills like running and hopping, manipulative skills like throwing and catching and non-manipulative skills like balancing and awareness of self-space and boundaries.

The study said 43 per cent of the children had less than ideal level of physical fitness, with an unhealthy level of Body Mass Index (BMI). It was found that 56 per cent of them were not fully aware of their self-space and general space or boundaries that exist around them.

This translates into not being capable of interacting seamlessly with people or objects in their environment. At an aggregate level, 28 per cent of the kids showed a shockingly low level of proficiency in different skills, in which they required significant intervention to reach an acceptable level.  

Saumil Majumdar, CEO and co-founder of EduSports, said it was disheartening to see skills like running and throwing, which were taken for granted a couple of decades ago, have now become deficient among children.