Dr.Hab., Professor S.M. Kosenok¹
PhD, Associate Professor A.A. Peshkov¹
PhD, Associate Professor N.V. Peshkova¹
PhD, Associate Professor V.V. Apokin^1
1Surgut State University, Surgut

Keywords: health, physical education, sporting, recreation and health service, academic sports, physical education sportization.

Background. The national government gives a growing priority to the population health and active longevity management issues as once again confirmed by President V.V. Putin in his address to the Federal Government in 2018 where he made an emphasis on the population health viewed as the key national wellbeing rate and underlined that the “purpose of the efforts to secure new quality in this field is to see Russia in the 80+ club of the leading nations with the life expectancy of above 80 years. A special priority must be given to the initiatives to guarantee proactive growth of the healthy, active and fully-fledged national longevity unrestricted, unrestrained by a disease”.

It is common knowledge that life expectancy depends on multiple factors dominated by individual and communal lifestyles that must be designed to secure healthy and sufficient physical activity including popular physical education, mass sports, recreation and health movements.

This policy has been supported by the relevant legal and regulatory provisions including: “Physical Education and Sports Development Strategy of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2020” endorsed by the RF Government Regulation #1101-r of 07.08.2009; Federal Target Program “Physical Education and Sports Development in the Russian Federation for the period of 2016-2020” endorsed by the RF Government Regulation #30 of 21.01.2015; “Physical Education and Cultural Strategy of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2025” endorsed by the RF Government Regulation #996-r of  29.05.2015 and some other.

A special contribution to the efforts to attain the goals and missions set forth in the above government documents shall be made by the national educational system on the whole and universities in particular. It is due not only to the significant academic population estimated at 4.399,5 thousand students (as reported by the Russian Statistical Annual of 2017) but also the understanding of the fact that the academic educational period is the last and special time when the conscientious motivations and needs for physical progress can be cultivated.

Objective of the study was to overview the theoretical grounds for and analyze the practical experience of the academic physical education, sporting, recreation and health service provided at Surgut State University to the students and faculty.

Study findings and discussion. In May 2018, Surgut State University (SSU) celebrates its 25^th anniversary. It should be noted that since its early days the University management have been giving a top priority in students’ off-class activities to the high-quality physical education, sporting, recreation and health services. We have earlier reported progress of the University in this domain in the period up to 2013 [1, 2], with SSU team winning the fourth place in the III (2012) All-Russian Summer Universiade where it represented the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region (Yugra) (KMAR-Yugra) in 12 sport disciplines. The University picked teams have also been successful in basketball, volleyball, futsal; and individual university athletes have been successful in cross-country skiing, biathlon, track and field sports, swimming and other sports.

The University policies are designed to ensure further progress based on the positive experience of the past accomplishments to set new goals and missions as required by the modern challenges. As things now stand, the University management pursues the following three policies in the physical education, sporting, recreation and health services to the students and faculty.

The first policy is designed to secure progress of the academic sports in every sector including mass, professional and elite sports [3]. The mass academic sport system is leaded by the student-activists competing in many sport events hosted by the University including: Integrated Athletic Games of the 1-year Students of SSU Institutes; open University Championships in different sport disciplines; competitions of 2-3-year students in elective academic sports; University finals of the Russian Academic Sport Clubs Championship; Health Weeks in SSU; Fitness Festivals etc. It should be mentioned that the mass academic sports provide excellent sporting and competitive opportunities for the inexperienced student population that may be involved through the sports into healthy and active lifestyles and personality development to shape up the personality qualities highly valuable for their professional careers.

The professional academic sport sector is driven by the active academic athletes competing as members of the University picked teams in different sport disciplines in municipal, regional and national sport events. Presently the SSU management takes persistent efforts to advance academic basketball, volleyball, futsal, polyathlon, table tennis etc. As a result, the University teams have won many times the University Sport Games of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Reghion (Yugra).

The elite academic sport sector is driven by the top-level academic athletes competing in the national teams in many international sport events. As of 2017, for instance, ranked with the SSU sport elite were the following athletes: Dmitry Ivanov, MS in biathlon, silver medalist of the World Winter Universiade; Elizaveta Kaplina, MS in biathlon, ranked 4^th in the European Junior Championship; Kirill Matveev, MS in rifle shooting, runner-up of the Russian Championship; Andrey Ganzen, MS in karate, silver medalist of the Russian Junior Championship; Alena Efimova, MS in swimming, silver medalist of the Russian Championship; Bogdan Grechkin, MS in taekwondo, World Summer Universiade champion, and some others. The University takes pride in its women’s basketball team that has recently won the Russian 3x3 Streetball Cup. It may be pertinent to emphasize that the elite academic sport, with its great competitive accomplishments and celebrities, provides role models for many students motivating them for progress in the vocational academic sports.

The second policy is designed to advance the academic physical education service with a special priority given to the innovative models and modern physical education, sporting, recreation and health service technologies. It should be emphasized that SSU has accumulated a years-long experience of the sports-driven academic physical education service. Students are offered a range of optional academic sports to make progress in basketball, volleyball, swimming, taekwondo, bodybuilding, fitness, fitness aerobics, football, table tennis, polyathlon and skating. Thanks to the high-quality coaching service in the academic education and training process the students acquire excellent qualities and technical and tactical skills for competitive success in the vocational sports. Thus the sportization model effectively integrates the academic physical education and sport services with the growing student population being engaged in sports and physical self-perfection programs [4, 5].

It is highly important to secure permanent progress and no stagnation in every sport policy, and with this purpose SSU has created a broad-based sport management system to secure close cooperation of the Physical Education Department and sport clubs leaded by the Severnye Lisy [Northern Foxes] Academic Sports Club in every physical education, sporting, recreation and health service design and management issue. Such a versatile management system is intended to secure the students’ sporting interests and needs being satisfied; facilitate active contribution of every student to the sport processes; and offer them the necessary process design and management competences and skills.

The third policy is designed to systematize and integrate the ongoing recreation and health services (largely fragmented in the past) to the University faculty. The high priority given to this policy lately is explainable by at least the following reasons. As has been mentioned before, the health and active longevity is ranked high on the list of priorities by the national government and the KhMAR-Yugra government in particular, since the Northern climatic conditions largely restrict the physical activity and often detrimental to health standards. It is also important that the sporting progress and competitive accomplishments of the SSU faculty in different competitions (at present, for instance 25 sets of medals are being contested at the SSU Faculty Sport Games) encourage and motivate the students for active sports and health agendas.

Conclusion. On the whole, the practical experience of the physical education, sporting, recreation and health services provided at Surgut State University to students and faculty shows benefits of the University sports management policies. As found by the questionnaire surveys, the degrees of satisfaction of the student population with the sportizated academic physical education services come to 90% in some groups.

To secure further progress of the above academic services, effective policies and technological solutions need to be found to: (1) Develop and implement efficient models to mobilize the students and faculty for trainings and qualifications for the GTO Complex tests; (2) Develop and offer a set of elective physical education and sport courses for students with health limitations and disabilities; (3) Expand the range of elective academic sport services in forms of courses, sport groups for students and faculty (in cheerleading, floorball, Nordic walking etc.); (4) Organize academic competitions in adaptive sports; and (5) Efficiently support the academic self-management initiatives in sports, including SSU sport clubs.

References

1. Kosenok S.M., Peshkov A.A. 20 let studencheskomu sportu v SurGU: na puti k novym pobedam [20th anniversary of Surgut student sport: on the way to new victories]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury, 2013, no. 5, pp. 85-86.
2. Peshkova N.V., Lubysheva L.I., Peshkov A.A. et al Novoe v sisteme upravleniya razvitiem studencheskogo sporta v Surgutskom gosudarstvennom universitete [Innovations in university sport development management system in Surgut State University]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury, 2012, no. 11, pp. 85-87.
3. Peshkova N.V. Upravlenie razvitiem studencheskogo sporta v vuze kak nauchno-pedagogicheskaya problema [Academic sport progress management as education research problem]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury, 2017, no. 9, pp. 89-91.
4. Peshkova N.V. Effektivnost polisub'ektnogo upravleniya razvitiem studencheskogo sporta v pozitsii priobscheniya obuchayuschihsya k fizicheskomu samosovershenstvovaniyu [Efficiency of multilateral management of mass academic sports development projects]. Fizicheskaya kultura: vospitanie, obrazovanie, trenirvoka, 2017, no. 5, pp. 64-66.
5. Lubysheva L.I., Zagrevskaya A.I., Manzheley I.V. Sportizatsiya v sisteme fizicheskogo vospitaniya: ot nauchnoy idei k innovatsionnoy praktike [Sportization in physical education system: from scientific idea to innovative practice]. Moscow: Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kultury i sporta publ., 2017, 200 p.

Corresponding author: apokin_vv@mail.ru

Abstract

The study analyzes the physical education, sporting, recreation and health services provided at Surgut State University. Active longevity may be secured by due disease-prevention and physical activity facilitation initiatives including the healthy lifestyle promotion ones, with the physical practices being reasonably managed on an age-specific basis in the scopes and intensities intended to secure benefits for the physical education, sporting, recreational and health services. For these purposes, the university management has taken persistent efforts to facilitate the academic sports, physical education sportization initiatives and effective support for a variety of recreational and health events and initiatives for the faculty and students. On the whole, the relevant questionnaire surveys and progress monitoring show the academic groups being satisfied with the academic sports and physical education services and accomplishments, albeit a few problems are still to be addressed on a technologically sound basis including the actions to lure different student groups and faculty in the trainings for the GTO Complex tests; elective academic physical education and sport courses, particularly for the handicapped and disabled students; expanded range of academic sports for elective courses and group sports for the faculty and students; university competitions in adaptive sports; and well-designed and managed support for the students’ self-management initiatives in the academic sports domain.