Physical education adequately administered and executed at the Universal Basic Education (UBE) level can play a crucial role in the delivery and actualization and development of the psychosocial wellbeing of children. UBE is free and compulsory to all children within the ages of 6 – 15 years. Since (UBE) places emphasis on skill training and acquisition, such skilled and trained individuals can only be found in physically and able bodied human beings whose solid foundation would have been laid through well administered and executed physical education starting from the (UBE) level. The development of children is said to be multi-faced, there is need to lay adequate foundation at such early and critical stage of the life of any child. It was the reality of this fact that prompted this research which sought to explore and examine the physical educationists views on the importance of physical education in attainment of optimal psychosocial well-being of children at the UBE level in Anambra (Awka), Imo, (Owerri), Ebonyi, (Abakaliki) and Enugu (Enugu) metropolitan cities of Nigeria. A total of 206 physical educationists drawn from the study population of 2060 constituted respondents for the study. Data were collected through the use of a self-developed questionnaire that had been validated with value of 0.81 correlation co-efficient obtained. Five research questions were formulated and data collected were analysed with the use of frequency count and percentage. The result of the study generally revealed that physical education plays important role in the attainment of optimal psychosocial wellbeing of children at (UBE) level. The result also shows that adequately administered and executed physical education leads to positive change in behavior, diseases prevention, production of seasoned elite athletes for the country. Finally conclusions and recommendations were made on achieving the desired success in the UBE programme in Nigeria.
Keywords: Actualization, Psychosocial wellbeing, Universal Basic Education, acquisition attainment, optimal health.
