… 114 students take up PE Golf
THE Ministry of Education Allied Arts Unit, Guyana Golf Federation (GGF) and Nexgen Golf Academy combined forces in 2021 and history was made this year as students from President’s College, Anna Regina Multilateral, Rosignol, Friendship, and Wisburg Secondary schools elected to take Golf as their Physical Education elective.
Anna Regina Multilateral Secondary, having placed second in the National Golf School competition in 2021, held true to their promise to become the number one golf school in the country. ARMS led the nation in CSEC Golf with 51 students opting for golf with Rosignol Secondary second with 38.
ARMS is also the first school that has fully adopted golf into its teaching curriculum with over 1 000 students actively involved in learning the sport. According to PE teachers Amitabh Bisnauth, Noval Hastings, Gary Williams and Shurman Bristol, “Our learners have taken a strong g liking to golf in a way that we have never seen a sport catch on. All we need now is more equipment and we will dominate the country.”
Similar sentiments were expressed by Rosignol’s PE teacher Kevon Jawahir, “The entire class wanted to do golf and we travelled several times to the Nexgen Golf Academy to practise. All my students were hooked on the game after the first session with Mr Hussain.”
Golf has traditionally not been a popular sport among the general public because it was viewed as an ‘elite’ sport with high fees and the need to join a private club to play.
This all changed when Aleem Hussain, president of GGF and Nexgen Golf Academy, at the urging of Assistant Director of Sport Melissa Dow-Richardson in 2020, created a programme in conjunction with the MoE Allied Arts Unit to allow access to the sport by anyone who had an interest.
The programme, which came at an opportune time as virtually all sports were shut down due to COVID-19, was quickly adopted by Ms Barker-King, head of the MoE Allied Arts Unit and became one of the fastest growing sports with secondary schools in all but three regions now active in teaching golf to its 11th and 12th Grade learners.
The model public/private partnership saw Nexgen Golf Academy provide training, equipment and facilities and the MoE provide PE Teachers and resources for the ‘Train the Trainer’ programme which allowed the sport to reach into 102 secondary schools in just 15 months.
“It’s a great relationship that draws on the strength of each other, the equipment and knowledge provided by Mr Hussain and the Human Resources to develop the sport provided by The Ministry of Education,” said Ms Barker-King, head of the Allied Arts Unit.
“We expect that golf will be introduced to our primary school learners in July and expanded to Grades 7-12 in the secondary schools.” she further explained.
Once these plans are realised, it would place golf as one of the most involved sports with over 35 000 learners having access to the sport and the demand for golf-friendly playgrounds across the country will increase drastically
The Guyana Government, through the efforts of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport, has demonstrated its commitment to the development of sports in the country and plans are in place for the inclusion of a golf course in the Silica City project.
Hussain explained, “The scaled version of a golf course that I designed on West Coast is a model that can be used to fulfil the need, since it only utilises 10 acres of land, reduces maintenance and membership costs and can be located closer to populated areas. This is the next step that must be taken around the country as we build towards a national and Olympic team.” Hussain ended.
