Looking beyond the classroom

Public Adminstration Minister Karu Jayasuriya has stressed the need for extra curricular activities for students to complement their education at school. Speaking at a Cadet Corps camp he observed that extracurricular activities help pupils broaden their horizons and absorb additional skills and other positive characteristics. The Minister was only repeating a truism.

But his statement assumes additional relevance in the present day where student life is marked by the lack of extracurricular activities. It need not be emphasized that sports help in the complete formation of the student contributing to his or her rounded development.

A student however brilliant academic wise can turn out to be a misfit if he his devoid of those values and norms that are inculcated in the field of sports. Attributes gleaned in the sporting field also teach one how to take victory and defeat with equanimity and help in character moulding and traits such as honesty that cannot be inculcated in the classroom alone.

Time was when schools were a hive of extracurricular activities where students vied with each other to get into the college cricket or soccer teams while playgrounds in the cities and the outstations were teeming with sporting events.

One recalls the number of sports clubs that existed countrywide with a profusion of tournaments and youth taking to all kinds of sports in a big way. Today what one witnesses is a completely different scenario with children rushing home after school only to make a dash for their tuition classes.

Back at home they are either with their computers or watching television. Today, scientists have attributed obesity to the prolonged viewing of television in one posture and increasing sedentary lifestyles have been cited as the reason for diseases such as diabetes and heart attacks.

Parents too are wont to emphasise only on studies in the race for status and material achievements for their offspring ignoring the value of sports and other extracurricular activities.

It is therefore necessary for the education authorities to lay emphasis on this vital aspect of character building for the young that would in the long run help in the creation of a healthy and disciplined nation. As the hackneyed phrase goes 'All study and no play makes Tom a dull boy".

Let the bat do the talking

The imbroglio surrounding the Lankan cricket team down under following an outburst by reinstated Lankan opener Marvan Attapattu could not have come at worse time when Sri Lanka is battling to save the series following the first Test defeat.

There have been many comments made for and against Attapattu by team members which can only affect team morale ahead of the second Test.

The Lankan opener who incidentally top scored in the first innings after an enforced absence may have overstepped the bounds in the choice of expression used to describe the selectors. Perhaps a little discretion on the part of Attapattu would have been appropriate given that he proved detractors wrong by his performance in the middle and would have won him many more sympathisers in the long run.

This is perhaps the first time that a player has taken on officialdom while a series was in progress in the cricketing world so much so the episode dominated all newspapers in Australia overshadowing the Test itself.

The Cricket Board has threatened action against Atapattu and it would be interesting to the see how he will be penalised. Moreover the Minister of Sports who was instrumental in the recall of Attapattu has advised the cricketer to withdraw the remarks which at the time of writing had not been done.

There will be many arguments for and against the outburst by Attapattu with supporters of contending that this was a manifestation of pent up frustration for the treatment meted out to him by the selectors while others would argue that he had brought disrepute to game and the country through his conduct in a foreign land.

Suffice it to say that the whole episode once again raises the issue of Cricket Board politics which has come to usurp the game itself with different people pulling in different directions and doing untold damage to the spirit of the players.

One recalls those spacious days when Cricket was administered by genuine lovers of the game and the post of Cricket Board President was an honourary one usually occupied by personages with great public acceptance.

However with the Cricket Board coffers now brimming with funds the administration has provided to be a happy hunting ground to pretenders and status seekers without even a nodding acquaintance of the game or concerned with player morale.

But the team members have to forget all these and perform in the middle. To the team we say "get on with the job and try to salvage the pride of Sri Lanka".