Upshots of Neoliberalism on Sports Activities in Higher Education Institutions: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

Neoliberalism has emerged as the political and economic philosophy; tend to strengthen governments in financial terms by cutting off the social investments of government on general public and increasing the role of private sector in society. Sports in any society is the social act not just the winning of medals but also keeping society healthy but after establishment of neoliberal philosophy governments tend to decrease their social investment in society similarly the sports. Educational institutions work as hatcheries for sports development and due to the cut shot of social investment these institutions have also decreased the budget of sports. So this study tend to investigate the changes that occurred due to neoliberal philosophy in higher education institutions. In the most precise terms it becomes imperative to study the, Upshots of neoliberalism on sports activities in universities: as an exploratory study. The basic objective of this study was to find out the changes occurring within higher educational institutions in terms of sports participation and competitions. This study was delimited to the public and private sector universities situated in Lahore city. Furthermore study was stretched over those universities which have an association with the HEC and they take part in HEC inert university sports competitions. In this study, mixed methods research design was used and the data collected in this study was in qualitative and quantitative modes. In this study researcher selected all those universities which participate in HEC inter-university sports competitions. Director of sports from all universities and all those players who represent some university in sports competitions were the population of the study. To choose the sampled universities researcher had done census sampling and collected data from all the universities who participate in HEC inter-university sports competitions and are situated in Lahore city. There were four public sector and six private sector universities in Lahore city which participate in HEC inter-university sports competitions. For the selection of players as the potential respondents researcher have done random sampling with probability sampling methods. Total of eight hundred (800) were selected from universities and researcher selected only those players who participated in interuniversity competitions during the session 2015- 2017 and also selected only those players who participate in those games which are included in HEC sports competitions. Data was collected through five point likert-type scale and options of rating scale were; Most Often, Often, Neutral, Rarely and Never. Tool was consisted of forty three items representing eight different variables of neoliberalism. Second tool used in this study was focus group interview protocol which was administered to the Director Sports of all the sampled universities. Regression model was applied to analyze the data collected. ANOVA statistics was applied to see the effect of demographic variables on the parameters of neoliberal thoughts to see the significant difference in means of the sportsmen opinion. Several findings were drawn by the researcher like; universities are not providing facilities to the players for their self-grooming. Universities are not developing ethics within their players‘ through their sports processes. Universities are not making the players learn those skills through which they can make money outside the university. In nutshell researcher argues that there is no significant difference found in both public and private sector universities regarding effects of neoliberalism on their sports activities. Due to the neoliberal philosophy adaptation universities have changed many of their processes regarding sports and sportspersons like; universities are promoting only those games which are financially beneficial for universities and those games which have no financial benefits are the gain less attention of institutions. At the end researcher has made some recommendations like; Universities should not take the sports just an icon term of economic benefits because sports provide the way to maintain the health of the society especially youngsters or youth. Universities tending to serve as the hatcheries for sports and many of the players who found chance of participation at universities level proceeded to the international level; hence the universities should invest in their sports processes for the betterment of sports.