Looking at Shanxi with high-quality development of education: The opening of the 2025 Shanxi Youth Football League

On June 17, the 2025 Shanxi Youth Football League of "Chasing Dreams and Enjoying the Future" opened at Taiyuan College. Ma Jun, Secretary of the Party Group and Director of the Provincial Department of Education, and Zhao Yanfeng, Secretary of the Party Group and Director of the Provincial Sports Bureau, jointly kicked off the competition. Hou Wenyi, member of the Party Leadership Group and Deputy Director of the Provincial Department of Education, attended the event.

Shanxi Youth Football League is co-organized by the Shanxi Sports Bureau, the Shanxi Provincial Department of Education, and the Shanxi Football Association. With the goal of creating the "100 counties, thousands of teams, and tens of thousands of people" participation scale, it has innovatively set up a dual-track parallel mechanism between campus groups and competitive groups, aiming to build a youth football brand event with Shanxi characteristics.

In recent years, the Shanxi Provincial Department of Education has thoroughly implemented the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important instructions and instructions on campus football, conscientiously implemented the important measures of the Party Central Committee and the State Council on promoting the revitalization and development of football, continued to deepen the integration of sports and education, and jointly strengthened the training of teachers with the Provincial Sports Bureau, the Provincial Football Association and other departments, enriched football courses, innovated talent training, and improved the league mechanism. The campus football work in the province has shown a new situation of vitality, multi-party cooperation and unique characteristics.

At present, campus football events at all levels in the province are booming, forming a four-level linkage of "province-city-county-school" and a campus football event system covering all age groups with full coverage, creating a new campus football ecology of "using competitions to promote teaching, using competitions to promote learning, and using competitions to promote training", which has effectively promoted the dual improvement of campus football competition results and popularization development. Shanxi Provincial Campus Football Team has entered the top 16 national student competitions many times. This year, Shanxi Vocational and Technical College men's football team entered the top 8 of the National Youth Campus Football League (University Men's Group B). The Shanxi Provincial Department of Education will continue to expand the scale of provincial competitions, drive more students to "get out of the classroom and rush towards the green grass", and help students grow healthily and develop comprehensively in football.

Text/Li Dongzhen