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| Thursday, 1 April 2004 |
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Sports | |
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The bane of University sports by Dinesh Weerawansa Every time one drives along Reid Avenue, the attention is drawn towards the University grounds to see whether there are any important sporting events taking place. But most of the time, the grounds is almost deserted, except for a few undergraduates studying or chatting under a tree. This is not only confined to the University of Colombo but to almost all other universities. This has been the trend at the Universities of Kelaniya, Sri Jayewardenapura and Peradeniya too. The situation is the same or even worse at the Universities of Ruhuna, Moratuwa and even Jaffna. It's the same picture everywhere. Empty university grounds around the country is telling the pathetic plight of university sports here. We do not mean to say that there aren't any sports activities taking place at the universities. Number and sports wise, there could be many. But out of thousands of undergraduates in the Sri Lankan universities, only a few are engaged in sports. Even most boys and girls, who excel in sports at school level, give up once they enter the universities. Hence, only a handful of undergraduates take to sports and in some of them, the standard is even below school level. Sports and education This trend has been developing over the past two decades or so. In the past, many top sports heroes had been proud products of universities. But now, most universities find it hard to get even 11 players for their cricket team or 15 players for a rugby team. Some even find it hard to find four sprinters for a 100m or 400m relay team. What has been the cause for the deteriorating standards in university sports? Well, many factors have contributed to the downfall. Sports and education go hand in hand and it has been a globally accepted principle. Sports contribute to produce people with a healthy mind and body. Universities and schools play a significant role in producing sportsmen and women in the developed countries. It has been the case even in many developing countries too. The golden era in our university sports was from early 50s to late 70s. It started when the late pole vaulter M.A. Akbar, then an undergraduate at Peradeniya, won a silver medal at the inaugural Asian Games in New Delhi in 1951. Several undergraduates followed the lead until the role of undergraduates at national sports came to a sad end in 80s. The fact that University of Colombo emerged Sara trophy division 1 cricket champions during this era shows the dominance the undergraduates had. The introduction of special points to allocate a percentage for sports achievements for the university admission in 90s has done nothing to improve the standard of sports. The system was introduced with a good intention, but has failed to achieve its desired targets. Most of those champion sportsmen and women gave up their sports careers after entering the university in recent times. From their point of view, they too had reasonable excuses. The main reason for giving up sports on admission to universities is the difficulty of following higher studies coupled with sports activities. The developing competitiveness in the local education set up since the 70s has forced most students and undergraduates to stick to their books, rather than spend hours at grounds. While most other top universities in the world provide the necessary infrastructure facilities to develop the sporting skills of their undergraduates, we in Sri Lanka have been struggling hard even to maintain the basic and far below minimum level standards that we have, forget about development. Play leading role There are several other areas in which the universities could play a leading role. Areas such as sports medicine, physical education, sociology, sports psychology, nutrition, sports biology and biochemistry could well be developed for the betterment of sports with extensive research work. One wonders how many undergraduates and sports officials here are even aware of such areas connected with sports. Schools and universities are the breeding grounds for outstanding young sportsmen and women. These are the places where the coaches could hunt for talent and groom the potential future national champions. It is a common practice in countries, that have prominently marked their place in the world's sporting map. Unfortunately this is not happening here in Sri Lanka. In Sri Lanka, education and sports go on two parallel routes and would never meet at one point, though they are inter connected. In most other countries, national policies in sports and education are made in consultation with each field to get the maximum resources from either side. Here, we have not even heard of a national policy, forget alone the relationship between the two. We must have a national level body to do the liaison work among the Ministries of Education, Sports and Youth Affairs. There was a revolution in local schools sports activities in the 1980s with the introduction of National School Games in a big way. Then Deputy Director General of Education (Sports) Sunil Jayaweera, the Present Sri Lanka Athletic chief and National Youth Services Council (NYSC) chairman, was the live wire behind that success. But that trend has gradually faded away in recent years. Universities, Schools and Youth Services Council are the best places to tap for raw talent. Another important aspect to launch such a program is a team of well-trained officials. Young officials with special skills and devotion to the field should be given foreign exposure in modern training and teaching skills. Unfortunately, those who get such important scholarships to the nation are not qualified enough. Even most of those few who come on merit, look for greener pastures in those countries without injecting that knowledge back to the nation. |
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