Patrick-Estate Onyedum, Chairman of the Anambra Sports Development Commission (ASDC), said on Friday in Enugu that 1,500 schools would participate in this year`s school sports festival in the state.
Onyedum stated this at the inauguration of the Local Organising Committees (LOC) for Local Government Areas, including representatives of Area Education Officers and the Post Primary Service Commission.
Others are, Universal Basic Education Board and Sports Commission officers.
He said that about 600 schools participated in the 2023 edition.
The chairman called on sports officers at the local government area level to mobilise massively ahead of the festival scheduled for April 17.
The chairman said that the 2023 edition was a huge success but not without lessons, assuring that lapses observed would be addressed.
He said that Gov. Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra was committed to the development of discovered talents and the sports sector.
“The festival is going to be bigger and an improvement over the previous edition, and we hope that more talents will be discovered this time.
“You can now go to work and mobilize the schools in your community and local government areas.
“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 on the commission, said the festival was a developmental program and urged schools to comply strictly with the competition rules.
Okwonna, who distributed the rules and timeline for the competition, said that the picking and submission of forms would last between March 11 and April 8.
She said that 12 sporting events in the U12, U14, and U18 categories would be competed for at the festival.
The events included athletics, basketball, chess, cricket, football, netball, and table tennis.
Others, such as taekwondo, tennis, scrabble, swimming, and volleyball, were approved for the festival and would compete in the U12, U14, and U18 categories. (NAN)
