‘Football is a catalyst for great social change’
BY JUDITH DUFFY
THE popularity of football should be used to tackle homelessness and widening access to education, a leading Scottish academic has argued.
Professor Grant Jarvie, chair of sport at Edinburgh University, said recent research showed sports-based projects such as the Homeless World Cup, which took place in Glasgow last week, can succeed in changing lives.
He pointed to statistics which found 94 per cent of those involved in the World Cup said they had a new motivation for life; 71 per cent had changed their lives completely; and 71 per cent had continued to play football.
Jarvie said homelessness exists in every country and acknowledged the scale of the challenge.
But he added: “The lesson of the Homeless World Cup is that small things can make a difference.
“World leaders need to grasp more than they do that small sports-based interventions can grow alternative life chances, something that many bigger interventions have failed to do.”
Jarvie said education initiatives undertaken by Edinburgh University also demonstrated how football can be used to widen access to education.
More than 900 teenage boys from poorer backgrounds have taken part in the past 10 years in a scheme that works with local youth football teams to encourage learning.
Results from the Educated Pass initiative show 98 per cent of participants left school for a “positive destination” – such as higher education – compared with a national average of 90 per cent.
The university also offers a free online course based on football, which explores everything from the workings of the top clubs to using football to learn about finance and geography, which has reached 10,000 people worldwide since being launched in 2014.
Discussions are now under way over expanding the Football More Than A Game online course into “face-to-face” lessons that will take place at football stadiums and allow participants the opportunity to gain credits towards qualifications.
Jarvie said: “If education is part of a solution to developing social mobility, and popular interventions such as those using football can provide educational opportunity, then perhaps politicians have to be a little less precious about what can and should deliver educational achievement and opportunity for some people.”