School Festival: Onyedum Targets 1,500 Schools, Sets Up LOCs
Patrick-Estate Onyedum, Chairman of Anambra Sports Development Commission has called on sports officers at the Local Government Area (LGA) level to mobilise massively ahead of the 2024 School Sports Festival schedule to take off on April 17.
Onyedum gave the charge at the inauguration of Local Organising Committees for LGAs comprising representatives of Area Education Officers, Post Primary Service Commission, Universal Basic Education Board and Sports Commission Officers.
He said about 600 schools took part last year but he hoped that not less than 1,500 schools would register and participate this year.
The Chairman said the 2023 edition was hugely successful but not without lesson assuring that the observed hiccups would be addressed this time.
He said that the vision of Prof. Chukwuma Soludo was that every Anambra child would have the opportunity to develop his or her talent and promised to support the sector.
“The festival is going to be bigger and a huge improvement over the previous edition, we hope that more talents will be discovered this time.
“You can now go to work, mobilise the schools in your community and local government areas, you had been given the forms, ensure that no school is left out, at least we should have not less than 1,500 schools on parade,” he said.
Also speaking, Faith Okwonna, a Director in the Commission said the festival was a developmental programme and that schools should comply strictly to the competition rules.
Okwonna who distributed the rules and timeline for the competition said the picking as submission of forms would last between March 11 and April 8.
She said 12 sporting events including Athletics, Basketball, Chess, Cricket, Football, Ncho, Table Tennis, Taekwondo, Tennis, Scrabble, Swimming, Volleyball were approved for the festival and would be competed in U12, U14 and U18 categories.
