Educators are hoping to rid the Island of young couch potatoes by increasing sports activities in public schools.

The Ministries of Education and Youth and Sport have been meeting to discuss ways of enhancing the opportunities for physical education at schools and encouraging more children to take part.

Chief education officer Dr. Joseph Christopher told The Royal Gazette that the Ministries believed that by increasing sport in schools, academics would also improve.

"We are talking with the Bermuda School Sports Federation (BSSF) on this issue right now," said Dr. Christopher.

"We would like to see more physical education and sport taking place in schools, and we would like to see more children involved.

"It may involve people working beyond the normal hours to offer additional activities after school, we don't know yet. The details are still being worked out.

"We want to encourage students to stay behind in school to take part."

Dr. Christopher said he believed that quite often good athletes were also good academically, and so increasing a student's sporting prowess may increase their interest in lessons.

He said, currently, how much physical activity children had each day depended on the school, but he hoped to see it increase across the board.

He added: "There is a correlation between sporting and academic performance."

Minister of Youth and Sport Randolph Horton said he very much wanted to see sporting activity increased in schools.

As a former sportsman and teacher, he said he believed sport and education went hand in hand.

"One of the things we have always said is that there is not enough sport in school," said Mr. Horton.

"What we have to do is find more people prepared to provide the training and then encourage more young people to participate in sport.

"I'm hoping that we are not just talking about increasing sport after school. I think sport is an integral part of the curriculum and not just after school."

But Mr. Horton said he also believed that people who excelled in sport could use that success and translate it to their studies.

Michael Charles, general secretary of the Bermuda Union of Teachers, said he was very heartened by the plans.

He said: "Teachers do stay after school now, but it is in more of a coaching role. What they tend to do is run programmes where they simply select a few kids who want to represent the school in terms of a particular sport.

"I am very much in favour of more sport in schools, but I would like to hear more about how it would work.

"You can't ask someone to come into school at 8.30 a.m. and expect them to stay until 6.30 p.m., but they could arrange their scheduling to fit around it."

Mr. Charles said the only problem he could see was where the sporting activity would take place in winter, when the nights drew in early.

He said not all schools have gymnasiums and floodlights were expensive.

He added: "If we increase physical activity for kids they will be more alert. It would teach the kids discipline and the need for hard work and training. They could translate that to school.

"If they are active enough it will possibly change the whole cycle of things. Their eating habits may improve, they will watch less TV, and may even go to bed earlier.

"Kids want to excel. By increasing sport, we would be helping them to do that."

The issue of school sports in Bermuda was raised after The Observer newspaper in the UK reported that the British Government was to run a three-year trial of increasing physical education at a handful of schools in a bid to reduce obesity in children, prevent the development of couch potatoes and decrease crime.

The plan, it stated, was to increase the school day by two hours, ensuring that every student spent those two hours doing PE in the middle of the day.

And the report said parents and teachers had given the proposal their support.

The idea of extending the school day in Bermuda has not been considered as one of the options.