Lascelve Graham | Ban recruitment for sports by schools

‘Fraud’ runs deep”, was the headline of the article published in The Gleaner on October 8 dealing with the use of ineligible players in this year’s high school schoolboy football competition. As happens so often in Jamaica, the big fish were able to dodge the bullet and emerge unscathed while the fryers are having the book thrown at them. I wonder how many others haven’t been caught. Of course this is a logical consequence of the unbridled free-market mentality, the genesis of the win-at-all-costs approach, which champions self-interest above all else. The impact on others, on the community, is considered collateral damage. We keep sending our children wrong messages, keep teaching them wrong lessons, yet sooner or later, when they begin to live what they have learnt, we blame them, the victims.

These shenanigans are clear signals of the intensification of the race to the bottom brought about by the overemphasis on winning at all costs at sports at the school level. Yet another fire to be put out by the leadership in education. They keep flaring up time and time again, over the years, as if cyclical. It seems that the win-at-all-costs approach is like a hydra. As you cut off one head, it sprouts another.

With all of that, our leadership in education continues to operate at the level of the symptoms, refusing to deal with the source, the root cause of the problems. This is the overemphasis on winning at sports by our schools, which is encouraged, facilitated, supported by the authorities allowing its offshoot, recruiting for sports purposes by schools.

For some time in Jamaica, the two main socialising agents of society, the family and the school, have been dysfunctional. Fixing the family is a very long-term project. However, our Government has full control over our schools and can have much better results in the short to medium term by focusing on making our schools better surrogate parents. This will involve a number of things, which will necessitate greater investment in our schools. It will also involve the more efficient and effective use of resources already available to the school. One of these is extracurricular activities, including/especially sports.

The primary function, the mission of school, is to prepare our citizens for life by formally educating them, particularly in the academic, technical, and vocational areas. Some countries, e.g., Jamaica, which don’t offer quality education to all its children, have a system of entry to high school based on merit, preparedness, determined by exam results. This is an attempt to match the children who can most efficiently utilise the scarce benefit (quality education) with the school offering the benefit. It makes no sense, for example, to have a youngster who believes that one plus one is equal to eleven at a school which exposes him/her to the best physics lab, the best chemistry lab, the best computer facilities, etc. It is a waste of resources. Such a youngster requires remedial work.

Under this protocol or system, the children who have qualified to go to the schools of their choice deserve to enjoy the fruits of their labour (many have laboured under the most adverse conditions), all the facilities and opportunities offered, afforded by the school. Extracurricular activities, including sports, fall under this umbrella. The role of sports in this scenario is as a socialising, teaching/learning tool, particularly focused on helping the school achieve its socialisation mission. As a microcosm of life, it presents many teachable moments and can be a most powerful change agent.

Sports must be allowed to perform its fundamental role, its raison d’etre in schools. The children who legitimately qualify to be at a school, nerd or star, need to learn the lessons that sports can teach and must not be crowded out by sports recruits. Bringing in children based on sports ability is unprincipled, is a double standard that decreases the efficiency and effectiveness of our education/socialisation system. It is unfair to those children who have earned their place at the school and an injustice to those who have been denied the opportunity because their spaces were taken by sports recruits. Schools cannot be all things to all people! Efficiency and division of labour do not allow this!

Jamaica must ban recruiting for sports purposes by our schools!

None of the countries with education/socialisation systems worth emulating recruits for sports purposes at school level (basic education). None of the countries that have made positive paradigm shifts in their socio-economic positions, without the discovery of natural resources, had done so by way of sports. Education/socialisation has played key roles in all these situations. Education has been one of the pillars of their success. There is data that shows a direct correlation between education and GDP.

Our schools have a most critical role to play in the progress of our country. Yet our leaders are hell-bent on undermining, diminishing, diluting, corrupting the mission of our schools by, among other things, adding a conflicting objective to their responsibility, that of being the developmental arm of our various sports associations.

It has been demonstrated not to be in Jamaica’s best interest, so we must cease and desist! Our schools are not sports academies, clubs, and must stop being used as such!

Dr. Lascelve “Muggy” Graham is a former captain of Manning, All-Manning, All-Schools and All-Jamaica football teams. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.