With the monsoon schedule to come to an end in a few more days, the schools in Goa will start preparing for their annual or biannual sports day/athletic meet. Schools must have already decided the programme for the day. The concerned physical education teachers must have already submitted the list of events planned to celebrate the sports day in a grand manner.
A sports day/athletic meet is organised in the schools to provide opportunities to the students to participate in sports activities and showcase their athletic talents and excel in that field. During that period almost all the students of the school participate in some sports events who otherwise would have never taken part in any kind of sports activities. Sports day/athletic meet is the day students wait for with enthusiasm and excitement as it is always filled with fun, joy and off course loads of happiness of skipping regular classes.
The sports day is very important in the life of a student because it provides a platform and foundation for careers in sports in the future. Thus, utmost care should be taken while planning this day in the schools by the physical education teachers and the school managements. The sports day around the world is actually a replica of Olympic games. Everything that is being done in the schools is simply cut, copy and paste of the Olympic model. Right from the opening ceremony to the closing ceremony. But, recently it has become a trend in many of the schools in Goa to focus more on the entertainment, dance and costumes and other fancy drills that the important aspect of the sports day such as the sports events gets hijacked. The heads of the schools at times pressurise the physical education teachers to a point that despite not being in favour of it, they end up making the sports day look like a carnival parade. This happens because they lack proper understanding of the sports day. Some schools in Goa organise their sports days/athletic meets meaningfully. They do have funky drills but it’s limited only to opening and closing ceremonies. The day is mostly dedicated to pure sports events. But mostly in other schools so much time, money and energy is spent only to end up making the athletic meet look like a carnival parade. Some heads of the schools in Goa take great pride in talking about these funky drills they force upon their physical education teachers, without realising that they have robbed their own students from the quality time of athletic/sports events they would have enjoyed on that day and the ‘performance experience’ they would have gained from it.
This is an appeal to physical education teachers, school heads and managements to make sports day in your schools only about sports and not a carnival parade. A serious appeal also goes out to the Directorate of Sports and Youth Affairs, Goa and the Government to keep a watch over such events in the schools where unnecessary importance is given to unnecessary drills which hijack the importance of actual sports events. If proper importance is given to sports at the right stage and at the right time, Goa will definitely not think of hiring athletes from outside Goa, but will have its own strong athletes to compete with the rest of the country when it comes to national games.
