LLLP Statement - Sport: a lifelong learning companion

The Lifelong Learning Platform (LLLP) advocates for a holistic understanding of learning that encompasses the entire lifespan and takes place across formal, non-formal and informal environments. Learning does not occur only in classrooms, it emerges thanks to active participation, hands-on experience, and social interactions. In this context, sport represents a formidable yet systematically under-recognised learning environment, despite its proven contribution to key competences, social cohesion and health equity. This blind spot undermines the EU’s ambitions on lifelong learning, social inclusion and democracy as set out in the European Education Area, the European Pillar of Social Rights and the EU Work Plan for Sport.

From children's playful learning to community engagement, from recreational activities to volunteering and even to elite careers, sport offers spaces where individuals acquire key competences that help them become more active citizens and better learners in their walks of life. At one point in their life, everyone engages with sport through physical education but the participation rate reduces significantly after formal education - and so do the opportunities for informal and non-formal learning and the social connections it provides. Today, almost half of the EU population was reported to never engage in sports or physical activities. Sport can even play a role in reaching out to those who feel left out of the formal education systems, it simply needs the political recognition, policy attention and funding it deserves.

This statement recognises sport and physical activity as meaningful parts of education systems and calls for stronger connections between the sectors of sport, education, training and youth at international, EU, national and local levels.

Read the full statement here