NAN-S-8
Curriculum
By Millicent Ifeanyichukwu
Lagos, April 24, 2017 (NAN) Jimmy Ogunlowo, Chairman of Lagos State Taekwondo Association (LSTA), has said that the body would deploy more coaches to education districts across the state to enhance the growth of the sport.
Ogunlowo told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Lagos that the deployment would be done in collaboration with private and public schools’ authorities interested in the sport.
He said the objective was to make the sport part of schools curriculum, create an enabling environment and give opportunity to students to develop their interest and develop their taekwondo skills.
“We have some of our coaches who intermittently coach students on taekwondo, especially in the private schools where the sport has become a household activity in their sports calendar.
“But there is need for public schools to key-in with the trending sport and to further support the schools and upcoming athletes; we are going to assign coach to hold training sessions in schools.
“Although the exercise has been on but we are going to extend our coverage and throw the opportunity to all schools at the various districts in Lagos State.’’ he said.
The LSTA chairman said that having taekwondo in schools curriculum would go a long way to increase events on sports days, whereby students have alternative sports to engage in outside football and athletics.
He said it was through such programmes that the objective of grassroots catch-them-young could be achieved as young athletes would build dual career in sports and academics.
“We try to encourage students to engage in sports of their choice in the pursuit of their academics, and this is the reason we support them to combine both.
“The normal sports practiced by highest number of students are football and athletics; this is so because students are not aware of the existence of other sports.
“Our objective in this scheme is to introduce the sport; help interested upcoming taekwondoists to have a good foundation under the training of our up-to-date coaches,’’ he added.
NAN reports that taekwondo is a martial art for self-defence and a sport with defined fighting skills. (NAN)
MIL/PDE
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(Editing by Peter Ejiofor)