Sports Colleges were introduced in 1997 as part of the Specialist Schools Programme in the United Kingdom.
The programme enabled secondary schools to specialise in certain fields, in this case, PE, sports and dance.
Schools that successfully applied to the Specialist Schools Trust and became Sports Colleges received extra funding from this joint private sector and government scheme.
[1] The Specialist Schools Programme ended in 2011 after the change of government.
[2][3] The first Sports College was started in the Indian city of Lucknow in 1975.