Beyond the sporting abilities and performances

It is bone chilling to hear some of the anomalies emanating from our schools, relative to many of our budding sportsmen and women.

Specifically, the sound is loud that many students’ only known ability is in a sporting competition.

Unfortunately, the list is getting longer and longer, but sadly, little or no corrective measures are done to change the situation.

Instead, the respective educational institutions jump and wave when these students excel in their sporting endeavours, and are left to make it how they can academically.

Sad it is, however, the stark truth faces us individually and as a collective.

It is no better a situation for many years ago it was the normal practice that students will only attend school when their competitions are on.

But it is equally cruel for students who exhibit immense abilities on the field, on the court or on the green table, not to have some of the basic academic competencies.

Some years ago, one footballer who lit the schools’ competition left his institution bare handed, having attained the age of 18, and was only in Form three.

Let us face the realities, it is not all that greets the eyes and ears of our students’ academic prowess in the nation’s schools.

We seem to highlight the high flyers and shower them with all the niceties, when the most needed and vulnerable are left by the wayside and the come- what- may phenomenon in full application.

This is against the fact that some of our students have learning disabilities, added to the other dysfunctionalities they may possess. But, as it stands the Physical Education teachers and coaches, are only pre-occupied with sucking every atom of energy and skill from the players. The same is the case when the said personnel court students from other institutions, simply for their sporting talents.

Drawing on the analogy of a coconut, the respective schools drink the water and eat the jelly of the students, leaving the shell to be discarded.

Harsh this may sound, but it is what generally occurs within the school system, as parents are often duped, believing that their child is going into a heavenly arcade.

Therefore, something has to give, and value must be added to these students who have taken on the nomenclature of sports pawns.

The onus is on the hierarchy of the schools to put systems in place for students who bring nation-wide attention because of their sporting abilities, to attain those academic basic proficiencies.

Hence, a whole- school approach must be employed to add value to these students. We can no longer want these students’ glory and not attend efficaciously to their stories.

This is not to say that all in question will be success stories, but the mechanisms have to be instituted to ensure that some levels of advancement is made to these students who are struggling academically.