Twic Olympic organisers deny claims tournament derailed learning
The Twic Olympic Association’s leadership has dismissed reports that many Twic County schools were empty owing to the annual Olympic event, which began a week earlier.
John Kongor, a member of the Twic Olympics Association technical committee, faulted the school management committees for the empty classrooms in an interview with The City Review.
“That’s not true, every school has a management committee,” said Kongor. “If the schools resumed in the first week of January, then it’s not the fault of the Olympics, it is the fault of the schools. It is up to the school headmaster to announce on the community radio that the schools have opened.”
The reaction comes after Twic County’s Director of Education, Mawith Angok, stated that “the county’s ongoing Olympic Games have disturbed learning.”
Mr Angok claimed that pupils in seven schools around Turalei had not returned for learning since the start of the new academic year on January 3. He revealed that many of them were either participating in the games or were spectators.
He went on to say that the Twic Olympics organising team had failed to interact with education officials in order to align the “Olympics for Peace and Reconciliation” activities with the school schedule.
“If there was a chain of communication between the management of the Olympic Games and the Ministry of Education, we would have scheduled these games during the holidays, because it would not disrupt the education system,” said Angok.
According to Kongor, the COVID lockdown caused a disruption in the school calendar. He said: “The two-year lockout due to COVID increased the difficulty of aligning with the academic schedule.‘Schools were intended to commence in February and terminate in December.’’
“We are going into this year because of the protracted COVID shutdown.”
The Twic Olympics Association Secretary-General, Chol Ajing, further clarified that the state education officials were aware of the games and should have taken some adjustments to avoid any potential interruption in classroom attendance.
“We notified the county officials, who informed us that the schools will reopen on January 5. The county officials should have suggested whether or not the children should attend the games,’’ he added.
The games of Twic Olympics are based on the original Olympic Games in Greece and they include Javelin Throw, Discus Toss and Long Distance Running among other events.
More than 200 men and women athletes from all 6 Payam participated in this year’s event which is aimed at building peace and tolerance through sports. The Twic Olympics marked its 10th anniversary since South Sudan’s independence and concludes this week.
