Kolkata: The West Bengal University of Teachers' Training, Education Planning & Administration (WBUTTEP&A) popularly known as B.Ed university is all set to offer PhD in Sports Science Education from this academic year.
The university plans to follow it up with a four year integrated course on this subject from the next academic year. "Sports in academics cannot remain confined to a mere subject like Physical Education taught at the school level. The scope and ambit of Physical Education has increased a lot and there is an urgent need of a qualified pool for research and the university will plug this gap," Soma Bandyopadhyay, Vice-Chancellor of WBUTTEP& A said.
The varsity has already prepared the curriculum and will soon publish advertisement for the PhD programme. Amitava Chakraborty who is acting as the strategic driver in this introduction of this subject said with industrialisation and consumerisation of sports in modern times, the need is to increase the scope of professional and academic research in sports. "The curriculum will surely give a direction to this," he added. Elaborating on his view point, Chakraborty said that during Covid times the concept of smart stadium, bio-bubble in sports have emerged and the research input into all of these would come only from academics.
Bandyopadhyay who had served as director of IISWBM, Kolkata before her tryst in WBUTTEP&A had been instrumental in restructuring the PG diploma course in Sports Management which has become very popular. Dr. Madhab Milan Ghosh, head of the department of Sports Management in IISWBM is also a member of the curriculum committee of WBUTTEP&A. There are about 611 colleges under the university.