Thursday, June 6, 2013

Presidency Plans to Make Sporting Activities Compulsory in Schools.


Plans are underway to make
participating in sporting activities
compulsory for all primary and
secondary school pupils in the country.
President Goodluck Jonathan disclosed
this in Abuja on Thursday at the launching
of the national mobilisation campaign for
grassroots sports tagged: “Rhythm and
Play”.
“The aim is to nurture athletes for the
country for international competitions
and through this effort, we intend to
bring physical education back to our
schools.”
He noted that the idea was a fallout of
the presidential retreat on sports
organised last October which was also
“aimed at building a worthy nation for the
younger people.”
“Late last year, we convened a retreat on
sports which did not only analyse the
challenges in sports but also came up with
a clear roadmap for its development in
the short, medium and long term.”
“The programme that we are launching
today will provide young Nigerians under
the age of 17 with structured
programmes that combine sports and
play as critical learning and development
tools.
“This initiative will revolutionalise grass
roots sports in Nigeria. Our target is to
introduce two million additional children
to sports over the next two years.”
“In this regard, we have directed the
National Sports Commission and the
Federal Ministry of Education to work
toward achieving this target,” Jonathan
said.
He said that the country had done well in
sports in recent times and measures
were needed to be put in place to ensure
that the successes recorded were
sustained.
He emphasised the need to give grass
roots sports development serious
attention as sports was a veritable tool
for fostering cohesion and nation
building.
“So far we have done well in our efforts
to fly the country’s colours at the 2014
World Cup in Brazil going by the results
so far, we are very hopeful.”
“We must build on this momentum and
trend; we must take every step to ensure
that our successes are sustained.
“We believe that grassroots sports
development and nurturing will provide
the way for our country,” the president
added.
Sports minister, Malam Bolaji Abdullahi
said that the NSC would collaborate with
government in the 36 states and the FCT
to get additional two million children
across Nigeria to take to sports.
“To achieve this, every state of the
federation including the FCT is expected
to identify 2,200 children with potentials
every month,” Abdullahi said.
He said that the NSC would work through
its 12 zonal offices in the country to
establish sports clubs in all secondary
schools across the country.
The NSC zonal offices are located in
Ibadan, Akure, Benin, Port Harcourt,
Enugu, Nguru (Imo), Jos, Minna, Kaduna,
Sokoto, Bauchi and Damaturu.
“What we are going to do is to target 22
schools in a state; if we are able to get
100 children in 22 schools in a state
across the country, we are going to have
2,200 children per state every month.”
“This will amount to about 80,000
children in a month across the country
and in two years will be able to deliver
almost two million children that will play
sports.”
“Under the “Rhythm and Play”
programme, we are going to provide a
platform of opportunity for children of
school age to participate in sporting
activities.”
“We are going to leverage on existing
competitions and championships to
increase participation in grass roots
sports.”
“We are going to use this platform to
attract private sector sponsorship to
academia sports and youth sports
activities.”
“We are also going to use the framework
to nurture Nigeria’s future global
champions and propel them to the
podium play level,” Abdullahi said.
The minister gave assurance that the NSC
would train games masters for the
programme and deliver sports
equipment to all the schools.
The “Rhythm and Play” is an exciting
youth-friendly campaign aimed at
enhancing mass youth participation in
sporting activities and age grade
competitions.
It is also NSC’s flagship programme, which
will rely heavily on the use of music,
dance and celebrities to mobilise children
to participate in sports for grass roots
development.

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