No Schools Sports Festival for second year running
The Ministry of Education (MoE) has decided to forego the National Schools Sports Festival, for the second year running, mainly due to the COVID-19 pandemic state, which promises exceedingly slim hopes of resuming sports activities at school level.The MoE had to shelve the Schools Sports Festival in 2020 and with very little time to make logistic planning, the edition for 2021 too has now been termed as abandoned by the authorities. The Secretary of MoE, Kapila Perera explained that one of the apex reasons for the cancellation of the multi-sport schools event is the incapability of drawing the attendance of the participants, who are schoolchildren.
“Our priority as the Ministry of Education, is to make a proper plan to reopen schools and bring back the students. Sports events come as secondary as per the present situation,” he stated.
Daya Bandara, the Director of Sports and Physical Education Activities at MoE, however revealed that the authorities have already proposed remedial measures to validate the affected schoolchildren, who compete at the National Schools Sports Festival, which has now been abandoned for two years.
According to Bandara, student athletes have been subjected to injustice as a result of the event being cancelled, as they earn special grading marks for taking part at sports events for university entry. The performances of three years are counted as eligible for special marks under this scheme.
“With the National Schools Festival not being held for two years now, there’s a proposal made to the higher authorities to consider the performances and merits of these students of their previous two years in sports activities. This is a reasonable proposal made based on the side of these students,” he stated.
The National Schools Sports Festival is the main sports event conducted by the Ministry of Education annually. It includes 19 sports disciplines, and is conducted in three stages — Divisional, Zonal and District — before the selected and pruned down athletes compete at the grand event, held over a week. The MoE allocates funds to conduct these chain of events and the National Schools Sports Festival through its budgets.
“Authorities are yet to decide on the funds allocated for the event of 2020 and 2021. A decision is yet to be made if the funds will be returned to the treasury or they might be used to develop infrastructure and sports facilities of schools. A decision will be made soon,” revealed Bandara, who added that that schools have been advised to resume and continue sports training despite the National Festival is called off.
“We will assess the development of the pandemic situation, and if there are improvements, school sports activities will have the possibility of resuming, but under certain guidelines and restrictions.”
As in last year, the National Schools Sports Festival failed to launch at least from its initial stage or the two remaining phases to follow, as authorities were not given the official permission by health experts. The MoE made a proposal to the health authorities with a trimmed down version for 2021 in which only the Under-17 and Under-20 age groups for boys and girls would have the events, but that too was not declined earlier this year. The MoE spends close to Rs. 80 million for the annual event in total.
“Though our main event is not held as planned for two years, the development projects of MoE are continuing. In addition to covering schools of 99 educational zones with sports development, we have initiated a project to develop 30 sports schools across the island,” he added.