News of rampant age cheating coming from the Federation of East Africa Secondary Schools Sports Association Games that ended in Eldoret on Saturday was alarming. It is even more worrying that the games’ managers seem uninterested in tackling the vice because of vested interests.
It is especially perturbing that the Federation of East Africa Secondary Schools Sports Association seems powerless to deal with the menace. This is compounded by claims that the Kenya Secondary Schools Sports Association encourages the vice so as to improve Kenya’s medal count.
Even when it is now clear that the two associations are aware of age cheating, they have done nothing to deal with the problem, even when some of the cases are rather obvious.
This is unfortunate because deserving secondary school students are denied an opportunity to nurture their talent in sports when over-age players take their place. It does not augur well for the development of talent in schools if old players, some of whom have featured in the national league, are entered in school teams under different names.
Kenyan schools have a duty to nurture new talent. Age-cheating has reached unacceptable levels of impunity and must be addressed urgently.
[Source:-Daily Nation]
