Early New Year’s wish

We should not go into 2016 with the same structure, the same mindset and likewise the corresponding posture in the way the schools’ sports programme is organized and subsequently executed.

This is so after another less than acceptable effort at providing our young people with a meaningful outlet for their sporting talents.{{more}}

It is not that one is expecting perfection, as this is an impossibility, but some aim at getting near the best must be pursued. Unfortunately, this never is on the agenda.

This, the first term of the 2015 to 2016 academic year and it has seen thus far, the completion of the table tennis component, with the football and netball competitions at the primary levels out of the way.

Still on the carousel and awaiting claim are the netball and football competitions for the secondary schools, which have faced their fair share of slip-ups, administrative clogs and the like, for yet another year.

Save and except for the table tennis portion, can anyone say with any conviction that the other two – netball and football, have received any mileage by way of publicity?

How many persons are aware that the competitions are still ongoing?

Surely, only the participating players, their immediate families, schoolmates, their friends and a small percentage of the sporting population have knowledge of what is happening.

This is so because of the scant respect given to the sports in the schools.

Little effort is being expended by those who matter to engage media personnel here and have them help get the information out to the public.

It is easier to pull teeth, than to get the scores of the football and netball competitions, except one is present at the venue.

But how can one even know when the matches are scheduled, as there is no sharing of the fixtures, as a run-around is the normal course of affairs.

Unfortunately, the media unit which is bedded in the Ministry of Education has seemingly relinquished its terms of reference or is sleeping on the job.

Or is it that they expect practitioners to navigate social media, namely Facebook, to get information?

It is the lack of publicity why we are not getting to the heights where we can, as sports in the schools is seen as recreational activities and nothing more.

But while we remain in our prolonged slumber, others in the region are miles ahead and are widely awake to the profits that can be netted, just with an effort of purpose.

A look at Jamaica’s schoolboy football and Trinidad and Tobago’s intercol would see that they are staples of the sporting diets of the two territories, which others simply have to watch and admire.

The two activities are now go-to places for several US college coaches who descend on the territories in search of players to fill their teams.

But this did not pan out overnight, as structured approaches towards the process, coupled with a larger football set-up and of course, the interest generated as a result of media marketing and promotion contributed to their current status.

Quickly fingers would point to the complex configuration of the structure which governs sports in the school system.

And to some extent rightly so, as school sports is governed by a triangle, which is composed of the Ministry of Education, the national associations which chair the sub-committees, and the Division of Physical Education and Sports within the Ministry of Tourism, Sports and Culture.

Seemingly, the sub-committees have been vested with more power and authority than even the persons who are employed within the governmental framework.

Then, there is the customary blame game and stand-offish attitudes when things go awry, as some deflect responsibility, based on the set-up.

Also, mixed in the pot pourri is the usual bureaucracy within the various ministries, which sometimes lacks synergy and impedes on functional progress.

So here, sports in the schools, from an administrative standpoint, are merely routine undertakings, without any major progressive goals to be attained.

Students, therefore, are taught then that this is the best they can get and hence reciprocate with their output on the fields, the courts and on the green tables.

If something is not done soonest and greater significance not given to the programme, the cycle would continue, as these same youngsters will one day be in the seats of administration and can only dish out what they had consumed.

Moving into the New Year, when cricket, track and field and possibly basketball are on the itinerary, a new direction for the better must be mapped out.

Whatever the outcome of the general elections slated for next Wednesday, a decision too must come as to how greater priority to school sports can be exercised.