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In Belgium at least, swimming proficiency is rapidly declining. Can't remember the numbers, but many children can no longer swim. Some schools have changed thei

In Belgium at least, swimming proficiency is rapidly declining. Can't remember the numbers, but many children can no longer swim. Some schools have changed their programmes and have lowered the bar from the traditional 1KM in breast stroke or front crawl and are now basically teaching kids how not to drown. The cause, from what I remember, is a serious shortage of public pools. Many older pools have had to close because they can't meer water quality/hygiene standards, and hardly any new pools are being built. The sad result is that kids are now horrible swimmers.

phobosdeimos 8y ago
Immigration doesn't help. Swimming isn't really something people do in Iraq or Afghanistan. And boys and girls can't swim in mixed groups. Every summer is now filled with news of kids drowning- we are back were we started a hundred years ago.
- nolok 8y ago
  > Immigration doesn't help. Swimming isn't really something people do in Iraq or Afghanistan. And boys and girls can't swim in mixed groups. ? It is completly irrelevant, the proportion it represent is next to none. For your reference > The largest group of immigrants and their descendants in Belgium are Italians, with more than 450,000 people, which is well over 4% of Belgium's total population. The Moroccans are the third-largest group, and the largest Muslim ethnic group, numbering 220,000. The rest consists mostly of French-speaking people from Brussels, Turks, Kurds, Dutch, French, Portuguese, Spaniards, Greeks, Bosniaks, Algerians, Congolese, Vietnamese, Poles, Indians, and Guineans (around 23% of Belgium's population is of non-Belgian origin). Moroccan people swim just fine. I really do wonder how can people have that idea on their mind at all time even in cases like this where it doesn't even begin to be in scope.
  - phobosdeimos 8y ago
    Because swimming is no longer publicly funded and mandatory at schools. Which leaves it at the discretion of parents. Is it racist to point out that asylum seekers and migrant children are over represented in drowning? Swimming is something that needs to be taught.
    - nolok 8y ago
      No but it's stupid to claim a nation's overall proficiency at swimming (what this thread is about) is affected in any meaningful way by migrants that doesn't even represent a percent of their population. If you don't think that's what you were saying, I invite you to re-read what this thread is about, and your comment to it. The fact that these few people in particular might drown more often proportionnaly is 1. not what this is about, 2. unsourced, especially since as the article state culture who don't know how to swim are scared of it and don't try to do it, unlike culture like ethnic belgian who aren't scared of it and thus have more chance to drown by effect of not being afraid of going into the sea despite not knowing how to swim.
      - thucydidesofusa 8y ago
        It might not be that stupid. Consider this - drownings are big news events and it's plausible to think that each child drowning death is reported because people are sensitive to the story. It doesn't take many stories for people to detect/perceive a change in the trend if the base trend was roughly 0. It doesn't take many refugees drowning for people to notice more drownings and the trend in who's drowning. I don't know how to find the data but maybe someone else doe s- lets look at drowning data in the country by year by the victim's nation of origin.
- TomK32 8y ago
  I downvoted you even though I admit, people is the countries you named have less chance to learn swim. But we are talking western Europe and if society (that includes everyone of us) wants to prevent unnecessary deaths in our pools, then WE as a community of humans must act regardless of migration backgrounds.
- rsynnott 8y ago
  I've seen people blame immigration for some improbable things, but I think this one takes the cake.
agumonkey 8y ago
Ah shhh unexpected consequences of hygiene regulations .. quite sad.
- Udo_Schmitz 8y ago
  It's more about budget cuts. Public pools need to be maintained and modernised in the same way as commercial ones. Here in Germany communities decided to save money by closing or privatizing public pools. When I was a kid there were enough public pools around where schools could offer swimming lessons. Those are now either gone or replaced by much more expensive private ones.
  - agumonkey 8y ago
    I see. Still very sad.
TomK32 8y ago
Same in Austria. Schools have no more access to a pool nearby and just not enough funds to the basic swimming course are a massive problem. Deaths of swimmers, from children to young people their twenties are in the austrian news weekly if not daily. On hygiene standards, not much a problem here or in my native Germany, but instead it's a unwillingness by the local administration to fund those public pools. Among the richest countries in the world yet the focus is on some other shit.
- tom_mellior 8y ago
  > Same in Austria. Schools have no more access to a pool nearby That sounds like there used to be a time when that was different. In my experience, apart from maybe very few private or sport oriented schools, Austrian schools never had a pool. But in Vienna school groups would go to a public pool, of which there were and are many. Not sure if they stopped that, but if they did, it's not for reasons of access. More likely because doing anything outside school grounds is an "excursion" and organizing it probably comes with more and more bureaucratic nightmares.

phobosdeimos 8y ago

Immigration doesn't help. Swimming isn't really something people do in Iraq or Afghanistan. And boys and girls can't swim in mixed groups. Every summer is now filled with news of kids drowning- we are back were we started a hundred years ago.

nolok 8y ago
> Immigration doesn't help. Swimming isn't really something people do in Iraq or Afghanistan. And boys and girls can't swim in mixed groups. ? It is completly irrelevant, the proportion it represent is next to none. For your reference > The largest group of immigrants and their descendants in Belgium are Italians, with more than 450,000 people, which is well over 4% of Belgium's total population. The Moroccans are the third-largest group, and the largest Muslim ethnic group, numbering 220,000. The rest consists mostly of French-speaking people from Brussels, Turks, Kurds, Dutch, French, Portuguese, Spaniards, Greeks, Bosniaks, Algerians, Congolese, Vietnamese, Poles, Indians, and Guineans (around 23% of Belgium's population is of non-Belgian origin). Moroccan people swim just fine. I really do wonder how can people have that idea on their mind at all time even in cases like this where it doesn't even begin to be in scope.
- phobosdeimos 8y ago
  Because swimming is no longer publicly funded and mandatory at schools. Which leaves it at the discretion of parents. Is it racist to point out that asylum seekers and migrant children are over represented in drowning? Swimming is something that needs to be taught.
  - nolok 8y ago
    No but it's stupid to claim a nation's overall proficiency at swimming (what this thread is about) is affected in any meaningful way by migrants that doesn't even represent a percent of their population. If you don't think that's what you were saying, I invite you to re-read what this thread is about, and your comment to it. The fact that these few people in particular might drown more often proportionnaly is 1. not what this is about, 2. unsourced, especially since as the article state culture who don't know how to swim are scared of it and don't try to do it, unlike culture like ethnic belgian who aren't scared of it and thus have more chance to drown by effect of not being afraid of going into the sea despite not knowing how to swim.
    - thucydidesofusa 8y ago
      It might not be that stupid. Consider this - drownings are big news events and it's plausible to think that each child drowning death is reported because people are sensitive to the story. It doesn't take many stories for people to detect/perceive a change in the trend if the base trend was roughly 0. It doesn't take many refugees drowning for people to notice more drownings and the trend in who's drowning. I don't know how to find the data but maybe someone else doe s- lets look at drowning data in the country by year by the victim's nation of origin.
TomK32 8y ago
I downvoted you even though I admit, people is the countries you named have less chance to learn swim. But we are talking western Europe and if society (that includes everyone of us) wants to prevent unnecessary deaths in our pools, then WE as a community of humans must act regardless of migration backgrounds.
rsynnott 8y ago
I've seen people blame immigration for some improbable things, but I think this one takes the cake.

agumonkey 8y ago

Ah shhh unexpected consequences of hygiene regulations .. quite sad.

Udo_Schmitz 8y ago
It's more about budget cuts. Public pools need to be maintained and modernised in the same way as commercial ones. Here in Germany communities decided to save money by closing or privatizing public pools. When I was a kid there were enough public pools around where schools could offer swimming lessons. Those are now either gone or replaced by much more expensive private ones.
- agumonkey 8y ago
  I see. Still very sad.

TomK32 8y ago

Same in Austria. Schools have no more access to a pool nearby and just not enough funds to the basic swimming course are a massive problem. Deaths of swimmers, from children to young people their twenties are in the austrian news weekly if not daily. On hygiene standards, not much a problem here or in my native Germany, but instead it's a unwillingness by the local administration to fund those public pools. Among the richest countries in the world yet the focus is on some other shit.

tom_mellior 8y ago
> Same in Austria. Schools have no more access to a pool nearby That sounds like there used to be a time when that was different. In my experience, apart from maybe very few private or sport oriented schools, Austrian schools never had a pool. But in Vienna school groups would go to a public pool, of which there were and are many. Not sure if they stopped that, but if they did, it's not for reasons of access. More likely because doing anything outside school grounds is an "excursion" and organizing it probably comes with more and more bureaucratic nightmares.