‘Invest in our young people’

TDT | Manama

Email: mail@newsofbahrain.com

MPs are calling for a fulltime sports coach in every school to scout young talent, create a national list of promising athletes, and offer jobs to hundreds of unemployed physical education graduates.

The proposal, tabled by Dr Mahdi Al Shuwaikh, First Deputy speaker Abdulnabi Salman, Mamdouh Al Saleh, Hassan Ebrahim and Dr Hesham Al Ashiri, urges the Ministry of Education to assign a specialist to each school, tasked with identifying, training and mentoring students with athletic ability.

Al Shuwaikh, a member of Parliament’s Services Committee, said the current crop of PE teachers is already stretched thin with a full teaching load and a range of administrative and technical duties.

Unrealistic

He argued that expecting them to carry out scouting and personalised coaching on top of this is unrealistic. Recent sporting achievements by young Bahrainis, he said, have helped put the country on the map in major competitions.

With proper backing, he added, there is room for much more.

Warning He warned that a large number of sports graduates remain out of work and that the proposal offers a practical use for their skills.