The purpose of the Master’s Thesis was to analyse the presence of handball in the schools of the Municipality of Ljubljana (MOL) and to identify challenges and opportunities for further development. To this end, we surveyed teachers who teach P.E. at MOL primary schools. The key research questions stemmed from the challenges and opportunities, related to the presence of handball within the framework of lessons and extracurricular activities, and from the connection of MOL schools with MOL handball clubs.
There are 46 primary schools in the MOL area, to which we have sent a request to complete an online questionnaire. Only 68 of respondents completed the online questionnaire correctly, while 181 started filling it out. The data were processed using IBM SPSS 25.0 and Microsoft Excel 2024. Hypotheses were tested with T-test for independent samples, with one-factor and two-factor analysis of variance. Hypoyheses were accepted or rejected with a risk level of 5%.
The results show that the most actove schools in handball are Oskar Kovačič Elementary School, Kašelj Elementary School, Nove Fužine Elementary School, Novo Polje Elementary School, Alojzij Šuštar Elementary School, Prežihov Voranc Elementary School, Prule Elementary School and Savsko naselje Elementary School. As a rule, these schools also participate in handball competitions within MOL. It is also noted that interest activities are carried out only by club coaches and not by sport teachers. Out of a total of 21 schools offering handball as an extracurricular activity, 17 schools cooperate with handball clubs. Out of a total of 68 P.E. teachers, 22 of them answered that in addition to regular classes they also carry out extracurricular activities, but not handball.
Our research was based on the fact that handball is one of the most successful sports in MOL, especially in terms of competitive performance. In Ljubljana, there is RK Krim Mercator, which has been in the Women’s EHF Champions League for two decades, and RK Olimpija. There are two men’s clubs: RD Slovan, with a rich tradition and the relatively young club MRK Ljubljana.
Our research was based on the fact that handball is one of the most successful sports in MOL, especially in terms of competitive performance. RK Krim Mercator operates in Ljubljana, which has been in the Champions League for two decades, as well as RK Olimpija. There are two men's clubs, namely RD Slovan with a rich tradition and the relatively young club RK Ljubljana.
The results show that handball is relatively underrepresented in primary schools in MOL and has many opportunities for growth. P. E. teachers attribute the lack of engagement in handball primarily to a higher interest in other sports, rather than to a lack of competence or the sport’s complexity, which were some of the main reasons in the past.
Opportunities for further development of handball stem from the competitive success of clubs and national teams. The main challenge is to link this success and popularity with increasing the number of children participating in the sport. Given the significant achievements of Slovenian handball and the finding in our study of its relatively low presence in MOL schools, strategic planning and concrete measures are needed in this area. It is essential to establish a strong collaboration between the Handball Federation of Slovenian and schools and handball clubs in MOL. This would be a practical contribution to our research.
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