Abstract:
The main purpose of this study was to assess the practice, challenges and current prospect of physical education in secondary schools of Mana Woreda. The sample consisted of 254 students and 12 key informants drawn from the three high schools. Regarding sampling technique, students were selected from each sample schools by using proportion allocation simple random sampling technique. Key informants were selected on the basses of purposive sampling technique. The research methodology employed in the study was a descriptive survey. The major instruments in the study were questionnaire and interview. The questionnaires were administrated students to consolidate the information obtained from the questionnaire, unstructured interview was conducted with the key informants. Percentage, frequency and mean count were used to analyze and interpret the data. The findings of the study revealed that there was higher magnitude of challenge 136(54%) with some of findings like limitation of skills and knowledge, less or no support by the directors and super visors to full fill the teachers’ demands, Shortage of facilities, shortage of budget and large class size. The magnitudes of practice, attitude and prospect were 56%, 59.4% and 66.9% indicating poor practice, negative attitude and good prospect respectively. students’ and school administrators’ attitude towards physical education were low, instructional materials and facilities were inadequate, the allotted time to physical education was not enough, physical education was not considered as basic subject and large class size based on the findings, recommendation was made towards the curriculum to minimize the existing problem. According to this, physical education teachers should encourage students to participate, schools and community together should strive to fulfill instructional materials and facilities, creating awareness on schools and students about physical education. The concerned body in the Mana Woreda at Kebele level should plan to build additional classes for secondary schools to give solution for large class size, providing in-service training opportunity to those physical education teachers and regular physical education students and others to solve the identified problems as recommended.
