01-08-2025
National Sports Policy scores a goal
Bhavani from Hyderabad was part of the Sport for Life Skills programme for six years. Today, she plays volleyball at the national level and works with the same organisation, leading programmes in the very school where she once studied. A proud role model in her community, Bhavani supports her sister's education and aspires to study further herself, proving how sport can transform lives and inspire communities. Sports (PIC FOR REPRESENTATION)
According to a report developed by Sports and Society Accelerator (SSA) and Dalberg, playtime for girls falls by 36% in late adolescence in favour of chores (Report- State of Play in India, 2024).
When the Union Cabinet approved the National Sports Policy (NSP) 2025 this July, it ended a 24-year wait for an updated national framework. The 2001 policy, though path-breaking in its day, was born in an era when sports was largely about achieving excellence. NSP 2025 does more than refine medal-oriented pathways; it recasts sport as a cross-sectoral instrument of nation-building, explicitly tying it to social development and the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The policy reframes success not as a narrow medal tally but as every girl reclaiming her right to play, every boy learning resilience on the pitch, and communities discovering that sport can be a driver of health, livelihood, and social cohesion.
Sports for Social Development (S4SD) is a pedagogical approach as much as it is a strategy; it is a recognition that structured play and physical activity cultivate life skills such as teamwork, problem-solving, decision-making, collaboration, empathy, and communication, that echo through classrooms, workplaces, and civic life. International evidence is unequivocal: Children who engage in quality sport-and-play programmes show better school retention, higher self-esteem, lower substance abuse, and improved employability (The human capital model applied to Dutch young vulnerable people, 2018).
Sports in India was perceived as male, urban, and elite. NSP 2025 attempts to upend those stereotypes by explicitly mentioning girls, tribal youth, children with disabilities, and other marginalized groups. Yet, we need strong programme design to complement the policy, to dismantle barriers like early marriage, patriarchal norms, or disability stigma. With this lens, programme models should be adopted and scaled within governmental schemes like Samagra Shiksha or Khelo India. Likewise, programmes that adapt rules such as smaller teams, gender-neutral scoring, and assistive devices make play accessible to all, including children with disabilities while teaching peers empathy and inclusion.
The dividends are far-reaching. Social Capital Theory argues that shared activities build bonding capital (within groups) and bridging capital (across groups), both critical to socioeconomic mobility. Local sports that mix castes or school games between different communities erode prejudice more effectively than discussion on inclusion. When girls captain a mixed-group football team or children from different communities celebrate a relay win together, they internalise lessons no classroom can match.
By naming social development as a core pillar of the policy, it signals to diverse stakeholders, educators, corporates, donors, administrators that sport is no longer a co-curricular subject; it is a priority investment category on par with sanitation, nutrition, or digital literacy. A recent PACTA–SSA analysis shows that just 1.4 % of CSR spending in the last decade was earmarked for sport and development themes. NSP 2025, when operationalised well, has the potential to unlock a broader fund base —via direct line items in state budgets, CSR mandates, and innovative public-private partnership models.
NEP 2020 was India's declaration that rote learning must yield to experiential learning. It put physical and socio-emotional development on equal footing with reading, writing, and arithmetic. Schools tend to treat physical education (PE) periods as expendable, and parents still view sport as peripheral. NSP 2025 arrives as the long-needed companion policy, spelling out how to embed play in the school timetable, who should teach it, and which assessment standards will count towards academic credits.
In India, however, access remains painfully unequal. Roughly half of young children in rural or low-income areas still have no access to structured play; 31% of rural schools do not have a playground (ASER 2024). The shortage of dedicated PE instructors is a significant gap. The latest ASER 2024 findings reinforce the point: Only 16.5% of rural schools reported a dedicated PE teacher, while nearly a quarter had none.
Consider Odisha's pioneering effort: The state linked PE to formal examinations, trained 7,500 teachers for secondary grades, and even rehired retired Physical Education Teachers (PETs) on contract. The result? PE periods are no longer 'free periods'; they are graded, structured sessions with clear learning outcomes. Odisha's experiment can serve as a template for other states but scaling demands three systemic shifts: Fast-track filling of sanctioned PE vacancies, development of PE textbooks under State Curriculum Framework (SCF) by considering NCERT's new KhelYatra PE textbook, which integrates sports with life-skills reflections and local games, and incentivising school system to equally map PE competencies as part of the PARAKH framework, with assessment that measures holistic development.
Recommending physical, art and vocational education as mandatory for grades 9-12 is the step in the right direction. Equally necessary are safe, open spaces, and therefore to consider auditing school playgrounds through UDISE+, and potentially find ways to utilise panchayat, school-management-committee, and CSR funds to fill gaps. Encourage community access to playgrounds after school hours, turning school grounds into shared social hubs rather than idle turf to build greater cohesion and community ownership and maintenance of the space.
NSP 2025 and NEP 2020 together sketch an inspiring vision: an India where every child, regardless of gender, caste, or geography, can learn, play, and thrive through sport. The wins are far greater with healthier and more confident young people.
To borrow a sporting metaphor, NSP 2025 is our team selection; NEP 2020 is our match strategy. The next five years will decide whether we convert that strategy into victory measured not only in podiums finishes but also in villages where dropout rates plummet, girls occupy playgrounds, confidence soars, and youth unemployment falls because sport taught teamwork, discipline, and grit.
If we seize the moment, NSP 2025 will stand as the reform that recognised play as serious business, serious enough to shape futures, economies, and nation building. The 2001 policy was a good starting point, the 2025 policy represents a systems-level shift embracing the full spectrum of what sports can do, level the playing field, get to the goal and take the country past the finish line.
This article is authored by Dhanashri Brahme, chief of programmes and Subhomoy Bhaduri, associate director - capacity building and collaborations, Magic Bus India Foundation.
