GUEST COLUMN by Peter Haynes

A sound mind in a sound body; if the former be the glory of the latter, the latter is indispensable to the former. – Tyron Edwards
THE above statement may also be described in another way: True education is not only about the development of the mind, but also about the development of the body and the spirit.I would like to use the statement primarily with reference to the Minister of Education, under whose portfolio Sport falls. The Honourable Minister Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine has the qualifications, experience, and ability to know why a healthy body is necessary for a healthy mind. His doctorate is one associated with the Arts, or more particularly with languages. However, if there is anyone who is not aware that he is capable of administering sport, please be advised that Dr. Roopnaraine was a Guyana Scholar in 1962, having gained distinctions at the GCE Advanced Level in Latin and Spanish. At the same time that he topped the country at the A level examinations, the Minister was also the captain of the Queen’s College Cricket Team. Under his leadership, Q.C. topped the Northcote Cup (Intermediate) competition and was promoted to the Case Cup competition – first class. Rupert Roopnaraine was a spin bowler who was also reasonably competent with the bat.

He proceeded to Cambridge University in England and continued to excel both in academics and in cricket, earning a “Cambridge Blue” and captaining the University against Oxford University at Lords – achievements that, in my opinion, speak volumes about his sporting abilities.

The question that this profile brings to mind is: how can we begin to realize that concentrating only on academics interferes with the development of the body? As Dr. Roopnaraine’s example demonstrates, it is safe to say that the diverse activities complemented each other. I make this point and use the Hon. Minister as an ideal example to confront those parents and children who seem to be convinced that concentrating on writing twenty (20) subjects at the CXC is a feat that they must strive to achieve, and this at the expense of participating in wholesome sporting activities for a minimum of one hour at least three times a week, which is the minimum amount of exercise recommended for children by the medical profession – not by sports advocates.

It is a well-known fact that children preparing for the CXC exams leave home at six o’clock in the morning to attend private lessons, and do so again in the afternoon after school. Parents who promote, encourage, or support such schedules for young children are indeed very selfish, their main objective being to raise a child who gains passes in twenty (20) subjects at the CXC. Alarmingly, many such students cannot even write a job application or an original essay. The Minister of Education has advocated on a number of occasions for children having a “rounded” education. In saying this, he does not mean that to be rounded a child must have twenty (20) CXC passes at Grade One; he means that children who have completed their secondary education either at the CXC or the Advanced level are prepared for functioning successfully in the world which they will have to face.

In the days when Queen’s College participated in several sporting activities at the First Division level, playing sports at school was literally mandatory; and if my memory serves me correctly, exemption from participating was permitted only after a medical doctor certified that the child had a disability. Moreover, it was not unusual for schoolboys from the top secondary schools to be selected to represent the country on national teams – and not junior national teams, but senior national teams. Many of these schoolboys who represented national teams also emerged as Guyana Scholars, and they did not attend “extra” lessons before or after school either.

If to achieve the goal of passing twenty (20) subjects at the CXC or eight (8) at the Advanced level requires pupils attending private lessons before and after school, it might well be supposed that their teachers are not fully executing the duties for which they are receiving taxpayers’ dollars. Are these teachers shortchanging the system and the children by requiring the children to attend extra lessons, either at their homes or at some other location, to make up for what they should have been taught in the classroom? If that is the case, what are the Heads of schools doing to monitor and evaluate the performances of their teachers? Or are these Heads part of the scheme to make extra money from selfish parents?

I am advocating for sports to be a part of the curriculum of every school in Guyana. This is not new for Guyana, and is not rocket science! It happened before, and it was done successfully for games such as cricket, soccer, table tennis, athletics, basketball, chess, badminton and volleyball, to name some that can be immediately returned to the school curriculum.

For this to work, the education system must appoint in each school a teacher whose sole responsibility is sports, and this person would operate in conjunction with the school’s Games Captain, to supervise the formulation and execution of the programme for Forms One through Six. Each school term would have two or three games assigned, viz. the games spread out through the school year, and the time-table could read as follows: Mondays 3-4 pm Form One; 4-5 pm Form Three; and 5-6 pm Form Five, with Tuesdays using the same times for Forms Two, Four, and Six. There could also be
inter-house games at the junior and senior levels for the designated sports in each term. It is accepted that such a programme would be costly to implement initially, as sports equipment must be adequately provided; but I am sure that the parents, realizing that their children have the talent and potential to succeed at a certain sport, would spend some of the funds now going to private after-school lessons to give their children some, or all, of the necessary personal gear.

Sad to say, almost every school with a space designated as a playing field has a space unfit for games, which really resembles a pasture; so we have work to do. But finding equipment for sports and getting playing fields into a fit state do not require a whole lot of planning: these need commitment. If such resolve could be drummed up and sustained, Guyana could look forward to the organising of inter-school, inter-district and inter-region tournaments that benefited from collaboration between the National Sports Commission and the Guyana Teachers Union.

Having introduced the NSC and the GTU into this conversation brings me to the issue of coaching. Many, many years ago, when sports activities were taken seriously, the then National Sports Development Council employed at least twenty (20) coaches — former national players who were qualified to offer instruction in their respective sports. Their work was essentially geared to the development of sports in schools nationwide, so that development was not restricted to the coastlands in the following sports: athletics, basketball, boxing, cycling, cricket, football, hockey, swimming, table tennis and volleyball.

In closing, I suggest that the national associations, the Teachers Union, parent-teachers associations and the Ministry meet for an intensive one-day workshop to discuss the development of this programme. Inclusive in this discussion should be the appointment of coaches and mapping the way forward for the comprehensive development of sports in Guyana.

Importantly, parents should be advised of the very important role of play in the development of their children; and that development of children will not have a chance to happen if children are forced to devour their school books for twelve hours a day six days a week or more.