The revamped National Secondary Schools Track and Field Championships are set for March 11-13
A new format for the National Secondary Schools Track and Field Championships, a plan years in the making will soon be realised with the 2025 edition of the event being launched at the National Centre for Educational Resource Development (NCERD) headquarters on Wednesday.
Education Ministry DCEO, Dr Ritesh Tularam
As was previously disclosed, the new format of the National Championships will see schools competing for individual glory closer to the time of regional events, similarly to the model used in track-and-field powerhouse nation, Jamaica.
Deputy Chief Education Officer (DCEO), Dr Ritesh Tularam, during Wednesday afternoon’s event, reiterated why the Ministry was so adamant about the changes to Nationals.
“The Ministry of Education, in its planning, wants to ensure that our athletes, the students who are participating in these activities across the various regions, we want to ensure that they’re given a platform so that they can scaffold in that career projection. As a result of that, persons competing at the Nationals in November of that year, we would’ve recognised that they’re not channelled accordingly to ensure that they benefit from the regional or international game,” Dr Tularam explained.
CARIFTA/Youth Commonwealth/South American U20 gold medallist Tianna Springer
He continued, “And so, the …remodelling or the repositioning of Nationals sits directly on our athletes benefiting significantly in the CARIFTA Games and we know that those games will be off in April of this year. so, the Nationals in this sense will project our students so that they could compete equally at these events.”
Dr Tularam went on to divulge the Ministry’s plans for how they will accommodate cycling, swimming and primary-aged athletes.
The DCEO at the Education Ministry revealed, “We recognise that the events that our students or athletes are expected to participate in at the CARIFTA Games, those are the events that we’re focusing the Nationals on. As a result, we have not seen cycling and swimming reflected at the Nationals in 2025; however, the Ministry of Education remains committed to ensure that we will not throw these two events out of the window. We will continue to ensure that at the regional level, our students are exposed to these events.
“Now, primary school [students] as we know, they will compete up to the regional level. So, we’ll have our primary school students competing all the way to the Regionals and that’s the cut-off in this regard,” he further revealed.
In a testimony to the value of the National Championships, Guyana’s golden girl Tianna Springer disclosed how the event set the foundation for her success.
“Participating at the National Schools Championships, it opened doors for me, because people got to see my full potential, what I could do. It helped people pick me to represent Guyana and I did in a lot of international meets. I got gold in the CARIFTA Games 2023 and 2024 and I’m planning on going back there to get a third gold medal for my country,” Springer related.
The new National Secondary Schools Track and Field Championships will run from Tuesday, March 11 to Thursday, March 13 at the National Track and Field Centre (NTFC), West Coast Demerara (WCD).
