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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Colleagues,

Today, we will focus on advancing children’s and youth sports. We will discuss next steps to improve the health of the younger generations and additional measures that need to be taken to ensure that every child has an opportunity to stay active, to learn to appreciate the value of physical fitness, and to understand the importance of an active and healthy lifestyle as a prerequisite for success in the future. This is, in large part, the key to achieving the long-term development goals for Russia.

Reportedly, the number of children that are regularly involved in sports exceeds 90 percent; it stands at 93.8 percent to be specific. However, this figure does not show the results of these activities which matter most. What these activities do for a child’s health, their academic performance, and physical and overall development is really important.

To provide a more accurate measure for assessing such results and to follow-up on supporting children’s involvement in physical fitness and sports, the activities of healthcare, sports, and education systems, as well as local governments, need to be synchronised.

I am asking the Government to ensure that this task is properly addressed by enlisting leading research organisations and the National Centre for Sports Medicine, to develop specific benchmarks and indicators, as well as guidelines and performance evaluation criteria for everyone who is in charge of education, physical fitness and safeguarding the health of our children.

Schools and PE teachers have a crucial responsibility in this regard. It is critical to uphold their authority and to maximise their ability to focus on the meaningful and results-oriented part of their work by cutting down on formal reporting requirements and ensuring modern-day working conditions.

Asking the teachers what they think about it would also be a good thing to do. I am sure they will be happy to share what makes children eager to attend and to enjoy PE classes. We must ensure that children engage in physical fitness.

This fully applies to extracurricular activities as well. While complementing the core curriculum, PE classes should not only be sufficiently long and beneficial for health, but also be genuinely engaging.

The school sports clubs’ activities should be structured in a way that would appeal to children both in form and in content.

Being the core focus behind sports and promotion of the physical fitness values among young people, health considerations need high-quality medical support. The comprehensive and harmonious physical development is the shared responsibility of school health workers and teachers. It is also important to systematically monitor children’s athletic performance and to draft PE plans tailored to their personal characteristics.

A challenging task, indeed, but we must access this higher and more effective level of work.

The objectives of medical and physical education activities in sports as a whole should be enshrined in the Sports Medicine Development Strategy through 2030. I am asking the Government, the Federal Medical and Biological Agency and, of course, the regional authorities, to draft it.

Innovative approaches to youth sports should be included in the state information system services as well. In addition to information about the individuals who stay active regularly, these systems should carry information about their health dynamics and recommendations on the volume and intensity of exercise. Without a doubt, access to private information of that kind must be granted only to authorised personnel, since this information contains specifics about the individuals, their skills, permits, and so on.

Please note organisations whose activities include provision of physical fitness and recreational services.

I mentioned them because physical fitness and recreation services may target adults, or adolescents and children. More often than not, these organisations are oriented towards providing services to young adults and even very young children. We are well aware that any engagement with children is essentially a learning experience for them. It is no coincidence that we combined supplementary education programmes and sports training standards, and reinstated the high status of teachers for sports trainers. We did so not only in order to ensure that their seniority is properly tracked, but also to enhance their status.

I am asking the Government to come up with proposals on ways to ensure quality control and the content of sports services provided to children.

The affordability of sports and physical fitness classes is another core issue to consider.

The Minister of Sport will report on the progress in this area.

To reiterate, the priorities include targeted support for children, especially children with disabilities and children in difficult life situations. Assistance to large families is on that list as well. In a word, access to sports and sports competitions must be maximised for all children.

It is gratifying to see business community being actively involved in organising children’s sports festivals and competitions. We will do our best to encourage such initiatives. I believe a special category for sports patrons and philanthropists should be established as part of the National Sports Award.

Of course, we should keep moving forward, especially so since the youth competition system for developing sports reserves has been established. However, we should do more for amateur tournaments that involve people who are not planning a career in high-performance sports.

I am aware that school sports leagues are being created in a number of the regions. Education Minister Sergei Kravtsov is present at our meeting. Perhaps, you could share the ongoing developments with us. Groups of teams and clubs are being created that will compete against each other. I believe such leagues should be set up in all regions, especially when it comes to the most popular mass participation sports.

Please do not procrastinate. Let us discuss the development of the competition system in Russia at the next Sports Council meeting.

Let’s get to work.

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Vladimir Putin: Colleagues,

I would like to thank you for our joint work. I also have a request. Some of you have probably not said everything they wanted to, but we have been working for over two hours, which is not that important. What matters is that I would like to ask you to forward the information you wanted to tell me, to my colleagues, or to Dmitry Milyayev as the head of the relevant State Council body, or to Alexei Dyumin in the Presidential Executive Office.

We will react to that together with the Government, the Ministry of Sport and the deputy prime minister in charge of these matters. At the very least, we will do what can be done in the current situation. We will try to do our utmost on the issues we meet to discuss, especially the vital issue of children’s and youth sports.

Every single issue raised today calls for additional attention from us, including the coaches’ pool, the organisation of children’s and youth sports, new sports trends, medical support, and so on. All these issues are important. There are no issues of secondary importance here, especially when it comes to children.

I would like to thank you for your approach to these matters. In conclusion, I would like to express the hope that we will not only discuss these issues during our meetings but will work together all the time between our meetings.

Thank you very much. Thank you, and good luck.