By Dotun Omisakin,
The Delta state government has explained that the reason behind the closure of secondary schools during the 2022 National Sports Festival, NSF in the state was to draw a balance between academic and sports.
The state commissioner for information, Charles Aniagwu who made boast over the dominance of his state in sports in the ongoing sporting event, added that the state government closed the school in a bid to also unearth talents.
He stressed during a press briefing held at the media tribune, saying that a number of the participants were secondary students, adding that they would resume their academic activities after the festival.
“As I speak to you, all the secondary schools in delta have been closed to accommodate activities for this event because we have a good number of secondary students that are participating, after this event, they will be able to continue academic activities and they will able to do their exams before Christmas
“We closed the school because we do know that if we are going to discuss new talents, we starts discovering them as early as 11 and 12 years in swimming, when they went to Abuja, a lady that won as much as 1o golds medals, less than 19 years of age, that automatically meant that we won 10 million because for us, we said for each gold is 1 million, just one little got as much as 10 another one got as much as 9, now even if you are in school, you might got what that will take.
“So if we say we are not going to close, when we know that a good of persons are students, at what time those that have taken the pain to participate will have time to write their exams meanwhile, they are doing you do by representing your state, so we do so that those who know that they have talents will not be scared because they want to showcase their talents, they will know that their education is protected.” He said.
He emphasized that Dr. Ifeanyi Okowo led administration prioritize sports, adding the governor had ordered that schools without a field for sports activities should not be given a license to operate within the state.
“First when we came in as administration, the governor made it clear that no private school license should be issued when you don’t have field where there will sports activities, so apart from the one that were licensed before we came where you have some future, today we dont approve license to private when you don’t have a field where students can engage in sports or the other.” He said.