East Africa School Games postponed to 2021

The 2020 Federation of East Africa Secondary School Sports Association (FEASSSA) games have been postponed to August 2021 as the coronavirus pandemic refuses to relinquish its grip on the world.

The annual regional competition was scheduled for August 14 to 24 in Kakamega, but after a Sunday Zoom meeting between International Schools Sport Federation (ISF) president Laurent Petrynka and FEASSSA led by the secretary general David Ngugi , a joint decision was taken to push this year’s 19th edition to next year.

Also, ISF announced the postponement of the 2020 World School Games to October next year. The biggest world inter-school championship was primed for October 17-24 in Jinjiang, China and Kenyan schools were due to participate for the first time in history.

Ngugi, who doubles up as the secretary general for the Kenya Secondary School Sports Association (KSSSA), revealed to Citizen Digital that they all agreed it would be practically hard to hold the East Africa Games this year because the qualification process has already been disrupted owing to the closure of schools in the region.

“We’ve made a decision to postpone the championship until next year because of the health challenge the world is facing. Kenya remains the host of the postponed games and it will be bigger next year because the ISF president has promised us he will attend. Also, the president has said that ISF has rescheduled the World Games to next October, ” Ngugi told.

Speaking during the meeting, ISF boss assured FEASSA of his commitment to offer support to help face the pandemic crisis while at the same time he urged the ISF members not to overlook games once learning activities resume.

“I urge all countries to plan for the resumption of sports activities once schools are re-opened because all over the world, sports form an integral part of the learning process. We’re also keen on development of school sports in Africa, “said Petrynka.

In Kenya, schools were closed mid-march days after the first coronavirus case was confirmed and by that time, most of the Term One activities were at the County level and the subsequent regional level was due to start the week the learning was halted as the government spelt out a raft of safety measures to curb the spread of the disease.

Hopes of staging the games if the schools reopen in September as proposed by the national Covid-19 education response team, however seem not achievable after the Ministry of Education last month ordered all the unspent co-curricular funds to be reimbursed back to the ministry.

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David Ngugi East Africa School Games FEASSSA KAKAMEGA Laurent Petrynka Postponed

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