By Gbenga Olarinoye

December 2012, at the NYSC orientation camp at Ede, Osun State, Governor Rauf  Aregbesola told primary and secondary school students that “education is the passport to the future, because the future belongs to those who prepare for it today.” He was quoting Malcolm -X, a black American social crusader.

Aregbesola made this assertion at an event where free school uniforms were distributed to students and pupils in all the local governments of the state. He also reiterated his resolve to transform the educational sector in the state as part of his Integral plan on which he canvassed for votes in 2007.

The governor introduced a gymnastic sports called Callisthenic, into public schools, ab initio, with performances/displays at various anniversary celebrations, which was initially restricted to about 20,000 pupils from schools in Osogbo and Olorunda LGAs.

Governor Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola of Osun state

The wide acceptability of the sport, coupled with eagerness on the part of the government to start and complete intellectual rebirth of the young generation in the state, made Aregbesola to introduce a new template of the game,   which accommodated selected public schools in all the nine federal constituencies as well as the private schools.

According to Mr Yaya   Ademola Adekunle, a senior official in the Department of Social and Grassroots Mobilisation and Guidance, Office of the Governor, who doubles as   one of the team leaders of calisthenics, the new template of gymnastics sport will be more enhanced by making it a competition of mouth watering reward.

“Participation is voluntary, with the parents/guardians of the participating students responsible for their costumes. The Government will only be responsible for the training and competitions which will hold in two stages – at the senatorial level between teams representing federal constituencies and at the state level between the 1st placed teams at the senatorial level competition.

“In addition to trophies, plaques, medals and certificates of participation for the participants, prize money of N1,000,000; N750,000  and N500,000  will be won by the first, second and third placed teams respectively at the senatorial level competition in September, 2017. By November 2017, the 1st team in each of the senatorial levels, along with teams by interested private schools, will compete for N2,000,000; N1,000,000  and N750,000 for 1st, 2nd and 3rd positions respectively, and other consolation prizes. These prize money will be used by the authorities of the combined participating and the host schools for the development of their sporting facilities and activities.

“Calisthenics is a very flexible sport. It depends on creativity. At our level, displays take two levels – field composition and background display. Activities at the federal constituencies to the senatorial competition are based on the field compositions. At the state level on the anniversary day, a background display consisting of rows of pupils seated in a gallery at Osogbo Township Stadium will be forming captions of different words and patterns, speaking to the competing teams in the main bowl, as well as to the audience. The background will not be competing. It will only add flavour and glamour to complement the competing teams and entertain the audience. Displays can involve from a few dozen up to thousands of persons exercising in unison. As stated already, it is a function of creativity,” Adekunle said.

It was in the spirit of that new template that calisthenics game schools competition was flagged off on Monday, September 25, 2017, among students of the secondary schools across the nine federal constituencies of the state.

The Director of Department of Social and Grassroots Mobilization and Guidance, Mr Adebayo Ojo, who spoke to newsmen at St Paul’s Middle School, Ilobu, after the display of the calisthenics sports by the students expressed his satisfaction with the excellent performance of the students, and commended the exceptional vision of the governor, for the adoption of the sport as a co-curriculum activity for students in more schools across the state, noting that the sport has no rival for enhancing organisational capacity, orderliness, precision, cooperative spirit, discipline and understanding among the youths; attitude and character traits fundamentally responsible for personal success in life and social progress.