Thiruvananthapuram: Each district in the state will have a sports school that will integrate physical education and skill-based training programmes, Minister for Sports and Youth Affairs A C Moideen has said.
He was speaking at a discussion forum on the rise and wane of Kerala athletics conducted by Malayalam Manorama here on Sunday.
In each district, the proposed sports school will be attached to an aided or government school. Applicants need to be a permanent resident of the district. The curriculum will be restructured in order to allow candidates to devote more time to practicing and training. There are also plans to integrate sports education with the formal academic curriculum. The existing facilities at the GV Raja Sports School, Ayyankali Model Residential School, and Kannur Sports Division will be improved.
“The government is dedicated to take the State Sports Council's ‘Operation Olympia’ scheme forward. However, since the Central sports ministry has plans to introduce a similar project involving huge investments, we have to bring together all the stakeholders to discuss the future of Operation Olympia’, the minister said.
According to the minister, continuing education programmes aimed at improving the skills of trainers and coaches will be organised under the aegis of the Directorate of Sports.
“An individual’s unreasonably long stint at the helm of affairs of a sports body should not be encouraged. All sports infrastructure facilities will be upgraded in coordination with local self-government institutions and organisations in the sector,” the minister said.
There was a general feeling of concern at the discussion forum over issues that plague athletics at the junior level. A discussion ensued where experts in the field put their heads together to find creative solutions to improve the situation.
Most of the participants stressed the need to find talent from the grass-roots level and train them for the future. The government and the Sports Council should put in place the required infrastructure so that youngsters are identified and groomed, they said, and added that instead of blindly copying the coaching methods adopted by foreign countries, we need to draft specific policies and programmes that are suitable for Kerala.
As a society, we need to radically improve our attitude towards sports, they opined.
Former chief secretary and former Sports Authority of India (SAI) director general Jiji Thomson moderated the discussion. Malayala Manorama chief news editor Marcos Abraham, and sports editor Anil Radhakrishnan also spoke on the occasion.
