THE dwindling fortune of the nation's school sports has been traced to private schools owner, who operate randomly without providing sports facilities or creating an enabling environment for sports to thrive, Sports Minister and Chairman, National Sports Commission (NSC), Yusuf Suleiman, has said.'You cannot keep children at that young age for years without participating in sporting activities,' Suleiman said in a chat with The Guardian. 'This is where we missed it because it is from the primary and secondary school level you build the culture of sporting life in a child.'Now as sports minister, one of my primary assignments is to bring back those good days to the nation's school sports. One of the steps is to collaborate with the Ministry of Education at state and national levels to flush out all private schools that do not create room for sports play grounds in their environment.'A child will attend a private school without a sports facility from kindergarten all through his or her elementary education. From there he or she moves to another private school without a sports facility. How do you expect such a child to inculcate that spirit of sporting life' If we must get it right, we must be ready to build our sports from that level.'Suleiman declared that he had to lead the crusade: 'I have told my members staff that we must collaborate with the Ministry of Education from the local government, state and national levels to make it compulsory as a bureaucracy that for anybody to be granted a license to operate primary or secondary school in this country, such school must show proof that it has the space for sports activities.'I can tell you that one of the greatest challenges to our sports today is the absence of sports in our schools. I remember that in my days as a schoolboy, most schools around Birnin-Kebi and in neighbouring states had enough ground for the children to participate in sporting activities.'I also remember then that virtually all sport facilities and equipment were available in the schools. I don't think any university has such facilities today and this is as a result of the dearth of sports at the primary and secondary school levels.'To revive the nation's school sports system, the NSC boss said there was the need to start promoting sports in primary and secondary schools: 'In those good old days, public schools normally had large hectares of land to accommodate space for all sports activities,' he noted.'Now, you see government build public schools without adequate and commensurate sports infrastructure. The operators of private schools are actually the biggest culprits. There are so many of them without a single sports facility. That must stop.'As a nation, we must inform ourselves that for you to provide primary and secondary education there has to be corresponding sports activities built into your curriculum.'There must be sports curriculum in the school system. If you cannot provide sports curriculum and you don't have the space to operate sports, then, such school must be ready to enter into partnership with other institutions and organisations that have the facilities, where the children can train from time to time.'Parents must also begin to understand that sending children to schools where there are no sports facilities is a wrong step for the child and the family.
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