Some 15 participants were awarded certificates following the Guyana Badminton Association’s (GBA) Shuttle Time Programme held June 23-25.
According to a press release from the GBA, it utilized this year’s Guyana Olympic Association Olympic Day series of activities to conduct the Shuttle Time Programme aimed at the association’s long-term plan to have badminton played prominently in schools.
According to the release, the programme, “which falls directlyunder the Badminton World Federation (BWF), is geared to make badminton the most popular sport in schools globally,” the release stated.
The Shuttle Time Programme educates Physical Education teachers to conduct badminton lessons and the three-day course, held in the boardroom of the Guyana Olympic Association’s building, was conducted by Jamaican Richard Wong.
Wong, said that the programme is not in-depth and is not structured to make the teachers coaches.
“We want to make the lessons fun, safe and have the kids experience success from the very beginning, and the Shuttle Time has been instrumental in that,” he said.
“The Shuttle Time Programme has been implemented in various countries across the Caribbean, and it actually helped in promoting the sport because it gets, as I said, teachers, P.E teachers or even regular teachers to teach a badminton lesson,” he added.
“The programme is very simple; all the resources have been provided for the teachers so basically when a teacher takes a Shuttle Time course and decides to implement the programme all they have to do is go back to their school, look in the resources we give them free and just decide what lessons they want to teach,” Wong pointed out.
According to Wong, the target group is Primary and Secondary school teachers, and while the aim is to introduce children aged 5-15 to badminton, the programme can be adapted to any settings.
Shuttle Time is the first such programme to be held locally and resulted from GBA president Gokarn Ramdhani making representation at the BWF’s AGM in Gold Coast, Australia, last May.
“It’s going to be a very good course for Guyana, especially for the teachers training the children for CSEC. It is also a basic programme to help us with the development plan for badminton in Guyana because now the teachers will be assisting us to get up the players and then we get them out into the areas and the teams and clubs we would want them to go,” Ramdhani declared.
Over the years the GBA has been clamouring for the sport to be prominent in schools nationwide, and Ramdhani said that he believes the hosting of the Shuttle Time Programme is a positive step in that direction.
“Because we’ve tried implementing badminton in a lot of schools for the past 7-8 years; we donated racquets, shuttlecocks and nets…we did programmes for them but nobody never followed up. So now that we get the P.E teachers, I hope this is a better way to get it more developed,” Ramdhani said.
Guyana is now the 106th country where the Shuttle Time Programme has been introduced.
Ramdhani said the GBA would like to thank the National Sports Commission, the GOA, Banks DIH and Nicholas Fraser of the Ministry of Education for assisting with the programme.
The 15 participants awarded their Teachers Training Course Certificates are:- Anson Ambrose -St. Rose’s High School, Abigail Alves – New Guyana School, Candyss Pauldon-Bishops’ High School, Cleon Critchlow-Jo-sel Private School, Nema Flue Bess-St. Joseph’s High School, Kevin Singh- Annandale Secondary School, Al Junior Wilson-Bladen Hall Multilateral School, Denese Stephan- Stewartville Primary School, Sarah Sylvester-Scott-School of the Nations, Priyanna Ramdhani-Marian Academy, Vanessa Shelto-GBA, Darrell Carpenay-GBA and Ravin Singh-GBA.
Four participants were awarded the Tutors Training Course Certificates at the conclusion of the course: – Narayan Ramdhani-GBA, Ambika Ramraj-GBA, Emelia Ramdhani -GBA & Marlon Chung-GBA.
