In the malay mail report yesterday the Sports, Arts and Co-curriculum department director Jame @ Maikal Alip said that the Ministry were not sidelining sports at the national level despite experiencing a tight budget this year (read here)
But today, Y.P. Sivam, of the Metro section of The Star, has a story to say that the MSSM budget has been slashed from RM6 million to RM 1.5 (read here).
I had blogged about it last month (read here).
From the annual 24 sports organised national level for the Under-12, Under15 and Under-18, 11 sports have been dropped.
The 13 sports which will be organised are artistic gymnastics, gymrama, golf, swimming, athletics, badminton, netball, basketball, volleyball, sepak takraw, football, tennis and hockey. On top of that, all the sports, except for artistic gymnastics, gimrama, swimming and athletics, will not have the Under-15 age group.
The eleven sports given the axe include sports which key sports in Malaysia -bowling, squash and archery.
The others axed are table tennis, rugby, cricket, sailing, softball, handball, cross country and chess.
But the authorities have not come up to admit it.
However, the State Sports Councils have confirmed that it has happened.
Selangor Schools Sports Council(SSSC) have said that they are going ahead to organise all the schools sports in the schools sports calendar.(Read another report from The Star here) Good on you SSSC. At least, you are committed to schools sports and development.
Not all State Sports Councils like SSSC have reserve funds to continue to organise all the sports events. Besides, many of events organised by SSSC will have to end at the State level, as there will be no national championships for many sports.
Why is MSSM putting the State Sports Council in this predicament? Is at the expense of the inaugural Asean Schools Sports Games? Let us help ourselves, before we help others.
So what is happening. Why all the denials? Is the Ministry of Education, the Deputy Prime Minister himself, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, aware of the situation.
Muhyiddin last month had said that he want to make sports a policy in school. In June he had said that more teachers specialised in sports will be trained and placed in schools.
Elsewhere, the Youth and Sports Minister, Datuk Ahmad Shabery Cheek, wants a full time national team and prepared to send them for overseas training and stints and spend millions. He also had announced that the Government has approved RM50 million for soccer development following the national Under-23 soccer team's Sea Games gold medal achievement in Laos, after a lapse of 26 years.
But at the grassroots level, their budget is cut!
How this can be, I really cannot understand.
Will someone in authority care to explain?
Or else, let us not kid ourselves about sports being a integral part of nation and character building, and all the hopes to achieve excellence at the world level!
3 comments:
Chess parents also very frustrated and hurt with the chop that includes chess.
You can read them in my blog at http://gilocatur.blogspot.com/
Tony,
At the rate we are going not only financially and looking at the current sociopolitical situation - we are all heading backwards- I always thought the more civilized we are, the more tolerant and responsible we are.....
Sports eventually will head for building strength in the family and community level- we need to get back to basics- how can we reach international level at this rate.In the eyes of the World.... We are standing out for the wrong reasons.
We need money to rebuild the nation to a Satu Malaysia first .
We were once HADAPAN but we must now GO BACKWARDS.....
This issue is VERY MALAYSIAN!
How could the Soccer Team, by winning the goal in Laos,warrants such a decision by the Government? That was just a LUCKY win. The boys did well...Yes they did, but then again it may just be a flash-in-the-pan.
But never mind, like every time we win something we give them the world.
Why worry about development? Why bother about development of sport, at the grass-root level. One fine lucky day we will win honors the we will give them millions in incentive. That is the Malaysian way as we have all experienced in the sport arena.
The MSSM is where all Malaysian Sport begins, and depriving MSSM the right amount of funds means that the Government especially the Ministry of Education are all lifetime members of NATO (No Action Talk Only)
They top it up with icing on the cake by not organizing the top 3 sport in the country, Tenpin Bowling, Squash and Archery. Instead, they plan to stage Netball Basketball etc, sports which we are not even a contender in South East Asian region.
I applaud the top brass in the Ministry, who came out with this brilliant idea of cutting down funds to MSSM and the decision to only contest the stated 13 sports mentioned. You guys makes me sick!
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