Changed approach to sport in SVG urgently needed
There has been a bit of shuffling around in the government’s ministerial portfolios here in St Vincent and the Grenadines. One of the changes is that Orandi Brewster, a former track and field athlete, now has the portfolio of Sport under his ambit.
The national sports fraternity is eager to see what the change of minister would mean for sport in St Vincent and the Grenadines, especially since the country is still debating the performances of the national representative team at the just concluded Paris2024 Summer Olympics.
There must be great concern by all involved in sport, as to the country’s responsiveness or lack thereof, in respect of the global changes that are rapidly taking place in sport, in every aspect, and whether or not national sports associations will be afforded an opportunity to join in any sort of national discourse that aims at shaping the trajectory and dynamism, here at home.
While we have been inundated with promises of St Vincent and the Grenadines on the path to the establishment of a consultative democracy, there is little evidence to show that such an approach has ever been in place in any aspect of governance here. Sport has certainly not been the beneficiary of consultations aimed at facilitating growth and development at a national level.
This country is yet to acknowledge its lack of understanding of the requirements of sport in contemporary global society. We offer no administrative, technical, physical or organisational sport infrastructure yet remain expectant of success on the part of our athletes, in regional and international competitions. It does not matter which sport it is; we are all eager to celebrate success and condemn failure to mount the awards podium.
Sport and Education
Over the past several years, we have witnessed the ministerial portfolio of sport being shifted around, without any reasonable explanation. We have all readily accepted that like other areas of government, the portfolio is the responsibility of the government and hence the latter determines under which politician it is allocated.
Here in St Vincent and the Grenadines, as is the case across the Anglophone Caribbean, sport is unfortunately still perceived by authorities in government, as frivolity. Some ministers and government leaders have actually characterised sport as a ‘waste of time’ and should be left to their own devices. One can understand this archaic perception if only because that was the general approach by international agencies. As late as the 1980s, Caribbean governments were advised against the inclusion of sport projects in their submissions for grant aid for community development requests. Any such inclusion was anathema to the general tenor of international aid.
But times have changed and today, sport is almost a necessity in any request for aid to facilitate community development.
Today it is commonplace for nations everywhere to speak of sport as development and sport for development.
Sport is being involved in all aspects of life. We address matters of sport and climate change.
Sports has found its way featured in the United National Sustainable Development Goals.
It remains an indictment on St Vincent and the Grenadines, however, that having signed on to the fight for a sustainable development strategy led by the United Nations and inclusive of sport, that at home, the government lacks any genuine understanding and lacks genuine commitment to according sport any role in the national development strategy.
While we often hear of a master plan for this country, there is no evidence of a specific set of strategies that place sport as central to the national wellbeing.
We are here insisting that sport be seen as one of the important pillars of the rounded education development of every child. Every Vincentian child must be accorded their right to literacy, numeracy and physical literacy, if we are to be satisfied that we are offering him/her the appropriate start to their development as human beings.
We must develop programmes that allows pregnant mothers and their male partners to an understanding of and appreciation for them to commence physical literacy exercises while the child is still in the womb.
We must expose our pre-school staff on the importance of instilling the fundamentals of physical literacy with their students so that by the time they get to primacy school, there is a foundation in construction. This then allows for the physical education teachers at the primary school to build the requisite blocks for physical education and sport through to the secondary and tertiary levels respectively.
Sport Institutions
The government of St Vincent and the Grenadines has four institutions that have some responsibility for sport. There is a ministry in which sport is one of its portfolios. In this ministry, there is a department that is charged with responsibility for organising assistance with schools in terms of coaching and competitions within and between them. However, the personnel employed here are not physical education teachers. The designation of a Director of Physical Education and Sports for the person heading the institution is something of a misnomer in so far as there is no current requirement for the Head of Department to be qualified in Physical Education.
The Ministry of Education is responsible for schools and hence, has a major role to play in national sports development. There are Education Officers designated responsible for the subject area, Physical Education and Sport. There is an accompanying subject area organisation designated the Physical Education and Sports Teachers Association (PESTA), which is responsible to discuss and recommend strategies and programmes consistent with the development of the twin-disciplines.
There is also the National Sports Council (NSC) which has, under the Sports Council Act, responsibility for the development, monitoring and maintenance of sports infrastructure developed by the government. The Act makes provision for a National Sports Assembly (NSA), composed of national sports associations and which serves an advisory role to the NSC. The NSA has never really been appropriately established and has therefore been non-existent.
The fourth institution in respect of the government’s approach to sport in St Vincent and the Grenadines is the National Lotteries Authority (NLA). This institution’s has long been declared as having as one of its mandate, support for sport. However, precisely how this mandate is carried out remains uncertain and there is no listing of any official policy and programme in this regard.
In the recent past, the NLA has been engaged in the construction, monitoring and maintenance of sports infrastructure, which, on the face of it, seems to stand in contrast to a similar mandate already and originally assigned to the NSC. Clearly, with much more consistent funding available to the NLA, this organisation has been able to produce sports infrastructure of a much higher standard of construction, monitoring and maintenance than the NSC.
Sports Personnel
There does not appear to be in place, any official policy and institutional framework to facilitate the scientific development of sport at the levels of administration, technical (coaching and officiating), and infrastructure, inclusive of facilities use and maintenance.
Little or no attention has been paid to sport beyond lip-service. There is no policy and programmatic framework in respect of the country’s approach to seeking to host regional and international competitions, camps and developmental courses.
There is no national plan in place for sport infrastructure growth and development that is known to the Vincentian public and even less so amongst national sports associations.
There is no policy and programme for facilities maintenance, hence the frequency with which millions and repeatedly spent on sports infrastructure almost without reference to the absence of proper guidelines for usage and care.
There has never been any governmental policy and programme regarding the systematic education and employment of trained personnel consistent with the ever-changing dynamics of global sport. While national sports associations are constantly being exposed to training programmes for their personnel in all aspects, there is no such phenomenon taking place at the government level.
We have no programme, for example, to determine the needs of sport for degreed coaches, sport physical therapists, sports promotion and marketing, athletes agents and managers, sports planners, sports facilities managers, sport psychologists and doctors specialising in sports medicine. There is constant growth and development in careers emerging in the field of physical education, physical culture and sport.
While there is much talk about sport tourism in St Vincent and the Grenadines, the reality is that this only makes the headlines whenever are fortunate to host some sporting event. Since the employment of a sports tourism officer as raised in the 1900, by the Director of Tourism, Ms Brereton, the issue has been, at best and even then, sporadically, by government officials. Sports associations have spoken of the opportunities of forging a sport tourism institution has consistently been ignored by the authorities.
There is also no forum that allows for a consistent meeting of governmental agencies and national sports associations to facilitate frank, respectful dialogue, on the state of sport in St Vincent and the Grenadines and the formulation of a roadmap that can integrate sport in the broad national development framework. There are no plans for this either.
Generally, the country requires a sport development strategy that brings to the fore consistent needs assessment analyses and the production and revision of strategic plans in this regard. There must be an end to vapse and knee-jerk strategies being used as an excuse for the application of scientific principles in the development of sport in St Vincent and the Grenadines that will facilitate its sustainability.
