“All brawn and no brains”: East Asian high school athletes call for academic reforms

By Lucianne Yu –

Photo caption: In 2022, Taiwan’s National Korfball Team won the bronze medal at the IKF Korfball World Championship. Photo credit: Ellen Chiu.

In the competitive world of East Asian high school sports, teenage students are forced to make tough decisions that will have ramifications throughout their lives. 

They must commit to a single sport, as it is often frowned upon to compete in more than one. They must decide whether to compete in national tournaments, which offer prestige but push young athletes’ bodies to their limits. Most importantly, they must often commit to spending less time in the classroom in order to make time for physical training.

Many of the most talented athletes end up in sports talent programs, which give students the time they need to train for competitions by removing academic requirements.

“Based on my experience in high school, the sports talent program students do have fewer academic classes than other students due to sports training,” said Ellen Chiu, a former high school athlete who competed as a member of Taiwan’s national team at the U-19 World Korfball Championship in 2022.

Chiu said students in sports talent programs were subject to a different set of scoring standards than other students and were taught at a slower pace. “It is also very common for me to be taken away from the class for training,” she said.

“I belonged to a sports talent program, and there were only four academic classes each day,” said Yuto Otake, a former high school athlete who participated in the Japanese High School Baseball Championship, known as Koshien. “I think I had less time to study compared to others.”

This is a gamble that pays off for only a small fraction of student athletes. According to research by S-PARK, a Japanese sports TV program, only 14.4% of high school baseball players continue playing at the collegiate or professional level, while 85.6% of players conclude their baseball careers upon graduation from high school. Those who retire from sports often find themselves unqualified to pursue higher education.

“If they do not qualify for university admission through athletic recommendations, it’s usually impossible for them to independently address the academic gaps accumulated during high school,” Chiu said.

The steep cost of risking academic opportunities by participating in sports talent programs may affect students’ mental health. Among 79 countries included in a 2018 study on student anxiety by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), Taiwan had the highest proportion of students expressing a fear of failure, while Japan had the third-highest.

Moreover, even those student athletes who make it into university through athletic recommendations face higher dropout rates and stigmatization over their perceived lack of academic achievement, according to research by Nagoya Gakuin University in Japan.

“I would say the system has indeed deprived students in sports talent programs of their rights to education, especially for those who aren’t interested in studying,” said Susan Huang, a teacher in Taiwan and mother of a child enrolled in a sports talent program. “They wouldn’t have crisis awareness for their future career.”

Overturning norms

However, recent events in Japan and Taiwan may indicate that success in high school sports does not need to come at the expense of an education. 

In 2023, Keio High School in Japan broke a 107-year championship drought by winning at Koshien. The school was previously known for bucking many local conventions in education, such as by canceling hairstyle restrictions for students, demanding less training hours from athletes, and promoting the enjoyment of baseball. Keio students are guaranteed spots at the prestigious Keio University, meaning these student athletes were able to win a baseball championship while remaining on track for higher education.

“I have strived to overturn what was considered to be the norms, and was able to create a kind of baseball I wanted to have,” team manager Takahiko Moribayashi told The Japan Times last August. “Perhaps this was a victory that will lead to a new look for high school baseball.”

Similarly, in Taiwan, Kainan High School’s basketball team clinched the Division 2 championship at the 2024 national championship, known as HBL. Unlike other Taiwanese high school basketball teams, Kainan requires its students to complete specific themed projects and adhere to the same academic curriculum as their non-athlete peers.

To some observers, these two victories represent a possible future for high school sports in East Asia.

“I hope the policymakers can think about teaching these students how to plan their career early,” said Huang, the mother of a student athlete in Taiwan. 

“Students in sports talent programs should not be all brawn and no brains,” Chiu said. “I reckon that the educational side should give student athletes the concept that sports expertise is a bonus for them and an advantage that common students do not have, rather than that they can’t do anything except sports.”

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Edited by:  Jacob Goldberg