The Ministry of Education has taken steps to ensure students' safety during sports lessons, but reducing hours spent on sports is not an option.

A regulation on campus sports injuries released on Thursday requires elementary and middle schools to follow national quality standards when selecting sports equipment and to keep records of purchases and use of sports venues for tracking safety.

While every school should have its own emergency procedures, education authorities must guide and supervise such safety routines, which are a key factor in school evaluation.

Schools must arrange physical checks and keep health profiles on students. Sports activities should be reduced for those who are deemed unfit for exercise, or such students should be exempt from such activities.

However, "reducing sports activities for students to avoid injuries is forbidden," the regulation states, underlining the national emphasis on young people's health and avoiding any increase in their already considerable academic burden.

Reducing sports activities in terms of both time and intensity, which in some cases amounts to a sports-free curriculum, is a common practice, especially at elementary and middle schools.

According to the ministry, school principals and PE teachers should be free from unreasonable worries and promote sports. The regulation standardizes safety measures and spells out specific responsibilities for the faculty.

Physical education has long been marginalized in China, and improvements only came about recently as the decline in young people's health alarmed the nation.

A survey in 2010 found that physical fitness among college students had slowly declined since 2005, and more students in primary and secondary grades were overweight.

Last year, the ministry stipulated at least one hour of sports each day for students, vowing to disqualify schools where students' health deteriorated for three consecutive years.