Good initiative to encourage sports in Kerala
It will be curtains down for the State School Sports Festival, organised on the model of the Olympics, in Thiruvananthapuram today. The young athletes gave it their all during the last few days in the capital city, while the event also brought out the challenges faced by many athletes in our state. Sports festivals are not opulent events, unlike arts festivals. Many of these young athletes hail from financially struggling families. For the same reason, the narrative should not be solely based on the medals but also on the struggles that the athletes overcame to participate in the event.
Many of those ordeals and struggles that made into news paved the way for well-wishers to provide help. However, some young athletes get unsettled over the public knowing about their financial struggles. Having witnessed this plight of sportspersons firsthand, Education Minister V. Sivankutty announced a plan at a press conference the other day that is relevant in this regard.
The minister announced a plan under which the Education Department will provide houses to 50 deserving sportspersons who won gold medals in the State School Sports Festival. The Education Department will implement the plan with the support of organisations that are interested in helping. For this, the help of various organisations has been sought.
The minister said that the CPM Idukki District Committee will build a house for Devapriya, a native of Idukki, who won gold in this sports festival, while the Kerala Scouts and Guides under the General Education Department will build a house for Devananda, a native of Kozhikode. The project aims to ensure 50 houses on the same model. This project is to give a boost to our sports sector itself. This project also aims to change the perception of parents who are generally apprehensive of their children pursuing a career in sports.
At the same time, there are people in the education department, like a school principal, who decided not to allow a student named Nived Krishna, who missed school for competitions and training, to write the exam. The attitude needs to be shown the door if the state is in haste to carve out sports prodigies. The education minister, a great sports organiser himself, should consider the matter at the earliest.
The Education Department is ready to extend a helping hand to the athletes, but there is a limit to what the Department can do. The Sports Department's indifference in providing good food in our sports hostels on time and providing basic facilities, including transport fare and jerseys to participate in national sports events, is infamous and often in the news.
Most training schools for athletes function in shabby conditions and often give up on their students after any major tournaments. Hostels under the Sports Council used to identify those who excelled at the school level and provide them with accommodation, food and expert training. This practice stopped long ago. The weakness in the department needs to be resolved first, or else the new initiative to build houses might end up futile in the future.