EU to promote chess at school

Miguel de Cervantes said that "chess is like life". Similarly, this ancient game helps a great deal in the education of children, according to international studies carried out by psychologists and pedagogues. For this reason the European Parliament is pushing forward a plan which will allow the learning of chess to be established in schools. Next week heads of the European Chess Association are to visit Spain to present in Vigo the 'Chess at School Project' ('Proyecto Ajedrez en la Escuela), already approved by the Parliament in Strasburg.

This institution considers that the dissemination of chess among children "could improve social cohesion and contribute to political objectives such as social integration, the fight against discrimination, crime reduction and even the fight against drug addiction". Moreover, in a declaration, the European Parliament adds that "whatever the age of the child, chess can help improve their concentration, patience and persistence and can help them to develop a sense of creativity, intuition, memory and analytic and decision making abilities".

For these reasons chess is not just a game. According to the expert chess player and psychologist María Enriqueta Granero, chess has become an "efficient partner in the development of scientific thought, which is an indispensable requisite in the contemporary world, and it takes advantage of children's natural game-playing capacities. It implies a constant testing of hypotheses that must be verified or rejected; it supposes the application of strategies in order to achieve an objective and it permits the acquisition of direct experience in means-end relations".