Francis Ajuonuma, Lagos
Governments at various levels of the country have been charged to upgrade the poor state of sporting facilities across the federation to aid the growth of school sports.
Director of Sports, Al- Faruq Schools, Lagos, Mrs. Shukurat Alagabi Abdulateef gave the charge, while spoking at the maiden inter- house sports of the school held recently at Cappa Sports Complex, Oshodi.
According to her, sports remains an important tool for youth empowerment which governments at the federal, state or local government must not ignore if the nation has to move forward in the area of sports development.
“It’s important for the federal, state and local governments to upgrade the play grounds into mini stadias as that will help in the development of sports as schools around such areas will be able to have access to sports facilities on their sports day,” she said.
Mrs Abdullateef, while also regretting that private schools are most effected by lack of sporting facilities as many private schools have inter- house sports in their curriculum but are unable to organize it due to paucity of funds, argued that with subvention from government, the schools will be able to put together yearly inter- house sports competitions where budding talents will be discovered and nurtured to stardom.
“This is the maiden inter- house sports of our school. School owners cannot just jump into inter- house sports because it’s capital intensive and that was why we took our time to organize this and hopefully, we will be doing it on regular basis.
“I think many private schools are interested in organizing inter- house sports but paucity of funds is affecting them and I think if Lagos State Government can extend sports subventions to us, many private schools will be organizing it annually”, she said.
At the end of the keenly contested inter- house meet, Yellow House emerged champions with a total of 17 gold, 15 silver and 12 bronze. They were closely followed by Blue House with 17 gold, 9 silver and 18 bronze. Green House came third with 14 gold, 19 silver and 12 bronze while Red House came fourth with 9 gold, 15 silver and 12 bronze.
Event organiser, Prince M.A Atiba of Atico GGlobal Concept Limited lauded the school for putting up such a colourful even hoping that subsequent editions will be more colourful.
