Khalifa Al Dirham: the agreement lays the foundation for raising a physically and mentally healthy generation
Mohammed Al Fadala: schools are the gateway to excellence and the driving force behind our achievements
Khalid Al Marri: athletics is capable of providing a sound sporting environment
The Ministry of Education and Higher Education and the Qatar Athletics Federation signed a cooperation and partnership agreement to spread athletics culture in schools with a modern vision aligned with Qatar National Vision 2030
to create a physically, mentally and psychologically healthy generation capable of meeting the nation’s needs for development and growth, in line with the modern programme of the IAAF, which addresses all educational and health aspects, growth stages, and the technical, physical and motor requirements of children at this age for all primary school students. This came at the start of the press conference announcing the agreement, held at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education headquarters, attended by Khalifa Saad Al Dirham, director of the schools affairs department at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, Mohammed bin Issa Al Fadala, secretary-general of the Qatar Athletics Federation, Khalid Al Marri, board member of the Athletics Federation and head of the technical committee and development centre, and Dr Firas, technical expert at the athletics development centre.
Shared vision
At the start of the press conference, Mohammed Al Fadala, secretary-general of the federation, conveyed the greetings and best wishes of the board of the Qatar Athletics Federation, headed by HE Dr Thani Al Kuwari, for success in building a fruitful partnership between the Ministry of Education and Higher Education and the Athletics Federation, serving the sport and our students across the various schools of our beloved homeland, Qatar. Al Fadala extended his deep thanks and appreciation to the Ministry for agreeing to adopt the “partnership and cooperation initiative” for spreading sporting and educational awareness of athletics among our school students, noting the alignment of vision between the two parties on the agreement, which is consistent with Qatar National Vision 2030 for both the Ministry and the Qatar Athletics Federation, and which also matches the federation’s vision, goals and strategy of developing Qatari citizens through athletics to achieve sustainable development.
Al Fadala added: “We certainly consider the Ministry of Education and Higher Education to be the first strategic partner of the Qatar Olympic Committee, represented by the Qatar Athletics Federation, as it nurtures our sporting talents, who are our foremost concern and for whom we set all our future visions, goals and strategies.”
A simple budget for the initiative
Asked about the financial cost of launching the initiative and who would bear it, Al Fadala replied: “As a federation, we are certainly able to meet all the initiative’s needs, which are modest and consist of providing training equipment for children — plastic equipment that meets all safety requirements for children practising sport — in addition to providing a qualified coaching staff of athletics coaches who will run workshops to train physical education teachers so that they can, in future, train and prepare our students in schools.”
Schools: a mine of talent
Al Fadala pointed to the importance of schools and sport within their walls as a mine of talented youngsters and a fundamental pillar for discovering, honing and nurturing talent through scientific and modern methods, affirming that through this agreement the Ministry and the Qatar Athletics Federation were laying the foundation for developing cooperation to serve school athletics in every field, wishing everyone success in a path that would help our school students become truly healthy and strong in the service of sustainable development and their homeland.
Khalid Al Marri: the project serves an important segment
For his part, Khalid Al Marri, board member and director of the development centre in charge of the school athletics project, affirmed the importance of the initiative and its vital role in establishing new concepts, its main aim being to spread the message and culture of athletics in schools among an important segment — the generation of the future and the nation’s security. He noted that the initiative rests first on finding and discovering talented students, and second on the professional development of teachers through training courses and workshops on athletics for children, how to teach it, and how to organise festivals in schools during extracurricular activity periods.
It should be noted that the Qatar Athletics Federation will provide the equipment for skills and events to facilitate training with the schools cooperating in the programme.
Dr Firas: fruitful benefits for generations
The development centre’s technical expert, Dr Firas Faraj, gave a comprehensive briefing on the initiative and the school athletics project, describing school sport as the gateway to the future and an inexhaustible wellspring of talent and creative energy among school students. He said that school athletics programmes rest on three basic elements — the student, the teacher and the coach — and that through their participation in newly introduced activity periods to raise fitness levels through new athletics activities, rates of obesity, heart disease and diabetes resulting from physical inactivity among a wide segment of students today could be reduced, according to recent studies.
Proud of athletics’ achievements
Khalifa Al Dirham praised the outstanding achievements of Qatari athletics over its international journey, expressing his deep happiness at the announcement of the agreement, which would establish a solid partnership aimed at an integrated sporting and cultural project to spread athletics in our schools and educate our school students, stressing the importance of sport in the life of nations and their health and physical future, and wishing athletics success in honouring Qatar in the challenges ahead.
An educational sports curriculum
Al Fadala expressed hope that athletics would in future be adopted as part of the educational curriculum of Qatar’s schools, saying our goal is to build a physically and psychologically healthy student character, and extending his deep thanks to HE the Minister of Education and Higher Education for his support and encouragement of the school athletics initiative.
Implementation steps
Among the most notable clauses of the agreement is facilitating entry for coaches of the athletics project to implement the programme at times to be set by the Ministry in coordination with the federation’s development centre during extracurricular activity periods, as well as facilitating the federation’s role in discovering talented students and directing them toward athletics or other sports in the future.
