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The most refreshing news in the past few days has been that the schools calendar is now up and running after delays spawned by Covid-19.
The first term, which traditionally begins in January, only opened last Monday, February 7, for non-examination classes.
This week, parents, pupils, teachers and their employers have been running around to ensure the best service is delivered to our children.
But while the focus has mainly been on the academic side of things, there is need to pay particular attention to the extra curricula calendar.
Schools sport constitute the bigger part of extracurricular activities and this is a golden platform to harvest talent and set the nation up for success in regional and global sport.
Through the schools’ system, opportunities are abundant for children from different backgrounds, whether they come from the far-flung rural or upmarket schools, to showcase their talents.
Sport plays a central role in the schools’ calendar in the endeavour to support and nurture individual pupils with diverse needs.
This is the reason why the Government has facilitated the setting up of the National Association of Primary Heads (NAPH), the National Association of Secondary Heads (NASH) as well as the Zimbabwe Tertiary Institutions Sports Union (ZTISU) which are responsible for running and management of sport in primary schools, secondary schools and tertiary institutions, respectively.
Institutions under NAPH and NASH, in particular, provide the requisite foundation for children to express themselves from an early age.
The platform given by schools helps develop pupils’ confidence and resilience through physical, technical and mental stimulation, as well as exposure to teamwork and leadership opportunities from experienced and qualified personnel.
The children are given opportunities to identify their talents.
They are exposed to more competition when they represent their schools.
The vision was very clear from the onset — to harness talent and provide opportunities for nurturing.
But, the benefits from these associations have not yielded tangible results in as far as talent scouting is concerned.
The failure is attributable to lack of funding and the lack of a clear national strategic plan in as far as the link between the schools and sports clubs is concerned.
NAPH and NASH may be trying their best under the circumstances but there is need to do more.
For instance, the skewed schools’ sports calendar has not helped the nation get the best out of the potential at the institutions’ disposal.
The schools sport calendar is usually divided into two, with track and field events filling the first term while the ball games are played in the second term. And then the third term is reserved for the preparations towards the final examinations, with little to no sporting activities taking place.
If we were to break down the calendar further, you would find out that pupils only have a few weeks to major in sport and such time may not be enough to maintain the interest and help develop the talents.
There have been suggestions that sports should be played all-year round in schools, with pupils majoring in areas where their talents lay. Imagine what quality will be produced, let’s say by NASH, if a pupil has to pursue athletics, tennis or football for the whole calendar year during his/her four or six-year course of study?
This would ensure the system does not produce half-baked athletes who will not struggle to advance with their codes beyond high school.
There is also need to bridge the gap between schools and club sport. That is where most of the talent is lost and never recovered, rendering all the investment in NAPH and NASH to waste.
It is high time we implore the Speaker of Parliament to raise an order to debate whether our education curriculum needs to be revised to bring about a new document that underpins the Early Child Development sports related programme during the school calendar and after school activities.
There is need for the Government to spearhead the development of a well-coordinated yearly sport calendar with links created between schools, sport academies and sports clubs to enable talent exposure, identification and development.
Unfortunately, schools sport have encountered a new challenge in the recent past — the Covid-19 pandemic. The global pandemic has not only made the situation worse.
For the last two years, no meaningful sport was played in schools due to national lockdown measures.
This development, although it ensures school children are safe during the pandemic, has affected budding athletes in a big way.
Preparation time was lost and many competitions were cancelled. Imagine, missing the most exciting sports event on the NASH calendar, such as the Under-15 Copa Coca-Cola football games, and knowing you will never get the platform again?
Athletes missed monetary prizes and missed opportunities of being selected into the football Coca-Cola Dream Team, which travels annually to East Africa, for regional finals.
It is every young player’s dream to represent his, or her country, and to fly in an aircraft to different places.
The young athletes also lost the opportunity for exposure in the region because the absence of national competitions and it meant there was no chance for participation at the Confederation of School Sport Associations of Southern Africa.
And after all has been said and done, it’s high time that the local authorities, especially the Government, take schools’ sport seriously.
Online Reporter