FOR the first time in our sporting history schools on the island will not have to dig deep into their coffers to purchase medals, and students won’t have to wait for the following year to receive their much deserved accolades as the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports on Wednesday morning made a medal presentation to five out of the eight districts.
Speaking at the presentation was President of the St. Lucia Physical Education Teachers Association Gilroy Hall. He said: “This gesture is unprecedented and for many years most of us who have had the responsibility for delivering sports programmes within the school system have clamoured for greater support especially when it comes to finance”
“While the presentation of medals may not seems to be a financial contribution, we have approximately over 102 schools which will be receiving medals; the average number of medals to be given to each school is 360 catering for three divisions male and female. If we do the maths with the knowledge of a medal cost is EC$8.00, it means this contribution is in the sum of EC$2880.00 per school for the 100 plus schools and this is really significant.”
The PETA Head urged all the schools that the savings they have now derived from this contribution should be invested into some other aspect of sports development within the school.
In the next few days, the PETA in collaboration with the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports will launch a “Support Your School Programme”. According to Hall, the idea is to get individuals to invest in their school.
Minister for youth Development and Sports Shawn Edward said, for four years now his ministry has been trying to make medals available to all the schools of St. Lucia.
He added: “This year we wanted to find some common ground amongst the schools and one of the easiest ways we felt we could have done it was to provide medals to every single school in the country. Medal procurement is perhaps the biggest chunk of any school sports budget. We believe once we had absorbed that particular cost not just on behalf of the education district but the schools themselves, that would give the schools some breathing space in terms of spending money on other aspects of their sporting programme throughout the term.”
The Minister said he was elated that the Ministry for Youth Development and Sports in collaboration with the National Lottery Authority and the Physical Education Teachers Association were in a position to present the medals.
Edward said, “This is not an era or dispensation in which the ministry will just conceive a programme or idea and then impose it on the schools. At every opportunity we have been willing to sit down with the PE Teachers Association which is really the umbrella body for all the Physical Education and Sports Teachers in our schools. We we have to sit down and dialogue so we have a common understanding in terms of the best possible ways to move school sports forward”.