NAN-S-5
Education
By Olanrewaju Akojede
Lagos, July 12, 2016 (NAN) A sports enthusiast and proprietor of Little Tigers Football Academy, Amaka Agbakoba-Onyejianya, has advised parents to compliment their children education with sports in order to add value to their lives.
Agbakoba-Onyejianya gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Lagos at the summer football camp for children at the Campos Square, Lagos Island.
She said that combining sports with the children’s education had more benefits as the children would be more energetic and healthy.
“Sports has a lot of benefits to offer kids, it makes them energetic, healthy and to imbibe the spirit of competitiveness and fairness.
“Engaging children in sports will make them complete children because sports build the muscles and also help the children to burn their energy.
“Children that are not sporty often develop obesity and this is more dangerous, so, if they are not engaged because of the professionalism, they can engage in it for recreational activities.
“Sports have got to another level in the world now. There is a new world order in sports because many elite abroad now send their kids to football academies,’’ she said.
Agbakoba-Onyejianya said that sports academy or football academy would give children more mileages to achieve whatever they want to achieve either in football or academics.
“The new world order in sports or football is the advent of academies where there is now a holistic approach to education and sports. This is helpful to all.
“The sports academies in the world are growing, likewise in Nigeria, many parents are now sending their wards to the academies for their education and sports development.
“I can give example with my academy where we started with only five kids about five years ago but now we are more than 100; that shows the level of sports appreciation.
“Kids from football academies can compete favourably with their counterparts in the normal schools and they can match them intellectually and even surpass them,’’ she said.
Agbakoba-Onyejianya said that sports did not inhibit the Intelligent Quotient (IQ) of children but rather enhanced it for better performance.
“Football academies have their curriculum structured in a manner that the kids can joggle between academics and sports for better performance.
“For Little Tigers, the children train on Saturdays and also on Mondays for the elite after school. The children’s performances are also monitored so that they will not be distracted.
“We want the children to be well rounded not in one area but in all their activities and they also have the opportunity to be trained as champions.
“It is now a holistic approach to child’s development and not a one sided approach. In academies they learn the spirit of having right values for their pursuit,’’ she said. (NAN)
TOY/KOJE/PDE
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(Editing by Peter Ejiofor)