Sport New Zealand and the New Zealand Secondary School Sports Council have released secondary school participation data from 2016 and Otago has moved up one place to top spot.
The region’s schools are leading the way with 69% participation, up from 68% in 2015. The national average was 54% so it was a fabulous result, Otago Secondary Schools Sports Association (OSSSA) regional sports director Nicki Paterson said.
"It is partnership of a lot of people. It is not just OSSSA. I want to make that clear."
Otago passed Wairarapa to go to the top. Aoraki was third.
Paterson said the schools worked tirelessly to help keep their pupils active and parents and volunteers also played a key role.
Access to sporting facilities in Dunedin and the region was another major reason why participation rates were much higher than the national average.
While it is a good result, Paterson said there were some areas of concern. The amount of teachers involved in sport in Otago remained static at 41%, and the number of teachers coaching had dropped from 24% in 2015 to 21% in 2016. Both those results are higher than the national average and Paterson said the schools were very supportive of sport.
"Schools are busier places now ... and teachers are getting involved in other aspects of school life rather than just coaching.
"Teachers are still involved, they are just not necessarily coaching."
Paterson believes teachers make the best coaches because they "should have the pedagogy of how to deal with children".
"They might have more of an understanding of the holistic approach to a student in school because they know that they’ve got that assessment on or that they got this and that."
The census also shed light on the popularity of the different codes and presents a challenge to the perceived hegemony of certain sports.
Netball is the most popular sport in Otago but dropped from 1687 to 1578 players during the period.
Rugby grew from 1401 to 1453 but is only the third-most-popular sport with basketball coming in second with 1478.Perhaps the big surprise is volleyball. It is the fourth-most-popular sport with 1101 pupils involved, while cricket is languishing in ninth place with 659 players, down from 700 in 2015.
Participation is defined in the census as a pupil playing for a school — or a club with a link to a school — in a competition for more than six weeks.
Participation rates
Top 10 sports in Otago secondary schools in 2016. —
Netball 1578
Basketball 1478
Rugby union 1453
Volleyball 1101
Football 1024
Futsal 913
Touch 828
Hockey 719
Cricket 659
Athletics 452
Top 10 sports in New Zealand secondary schools in 2016. —
Netball 29,257
Rugby union 27,261
Football 26,230
Basketball 23,180
Volleyball 16,902
Hockey 13,967
Touch 13,234
Athletics 12,713
Badminton 10,187
Cricket 9959
