‘Season 1’ School sports launched

The launch of school sports competitions slated for the first term of the 2025-26 academic year took place on Friday, October,3, 2025 at the conference room of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Dubbed ‘Season 1’, the first term will see inter-schools competition in the cross country race, road relays, as well as in football, netball, and table tennis.

“We are hoping that with the launching of these sports, that inclusion will be promoted at this level,”Acting coordinator of sports and physical activities, Jumodean May, said at the launch.

“We are also hoping to use these competitions as a learning curve, seeing that I just began my stint at the Department of Sports as of June (2025). I’m looking to working along with my department in terms addressing challenges that face us in…the promotion and development of these sports,” May added.

“We are very keen in terms of stakeholder engagement, for example the Ministry of Education, to address issues that may arise. I’m also keen to work with the federations.”

May believes “federations and associations should be spearheading these sports, and the Department of Sports, along with the Ministry of Education…should be facilitating the development of these sports, being spearheaded by the associations who have the mandate for the development of the sport itself.”

Minister of Sports, Orando Brewster a former teacher of Physical Education and Sports, said he is “Always delighted to speak on anything concerning physical education and sports here in St Vincent and the Grenadines, and I can tell you this…that I don’t speak from a point of view of inexperience, but I speak from a point of view of experience”.

Brewster said he worked for a number of years with various organizations and sporting bodies in order to see the development of sports across St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG).

“We can all have a consensus that in order for us to develop, we have to start at a very early age. If we want to see a lot of our young people blossoming into professional athletes, we must start at the grassroots level, primarily in our schools,” the sports minister pointed out.

He spoke about the number of sporting facilities across SVG that are being renovated, retrofitted, and reconstructed, and underscored the need for coordination and teamwork.

“We cannot have for example, a principal who is not inclined or who is not in love with sports to determine whether or not a school should participate in the sporting activities,” Brewster stated.

“ We should not have an individual coach to determine whether or not an athlete that is under his or her development programme, whether or not they should participate in our inter-primary and secondary school sports, and I want to caution that very early, because development of our young people is holistic. I did both academics and sports, and I was able to thrive in both areas. When you see an imbalance, then you would do the corrective in order to combat that.”

Deputy Chief Education Officer, Joyce Lynn Blake-Browne, in her remarks at the launch said, “I agree with establishing standards so that irrespective of which primary or secondary school you attend, at the end of the day, you should be exposed”.