Friday 19 / April / 2024
The Modern College of Business and Science in Muscat, Oman recently launched the Sultanate and one of the Middle East’s first ever sports science programme. This course will be held in association with the Trafford College of Manchester in the United Kingdom, global non-profit football development organisation Kick Worldwide and the Oman Football Association (OFA). We sat down with Dr Pemma Raju, the brains behind the programme, for an insight into this ground-breaking educational programme.
What was the reason behind the introduction of this sports programme?
We want to bring in sports-related programmes in a way to develop some activity in the youth. It’s not an organised way in which these sports have been organised, particularly in terms of football, though the OFA is there. I think from six months back these guys (the OFA) have started giving proper training. Mostly the demand is for football. That is the main thing, so we’re starting with football and a couple of enquiries came for tennis. Here, we don’t have activities for the women. Our other idea is to bring the Omani women into the sports field to provide them special facilities to do these things and a couple of girls are interested in trying to learn tennis to make their career. We are encouraging them on both sides.
How will this tie-in to the Qatar World Cup?
We want to start something related to coaching and the refereeing, particularly keeping the sports activities that are going to take place in Qatar. Already, Kick Worldwide has started some sports activities in some interiors with school children. Between one and two thousand children took part in those activities, and the next segment of the organisation’s target audience is the youth who are in the later years of school life, so that they can begin to train the next generation of adults at foundation level. We want them to become professionals in the longer run. We will provide them proper direction and give them proper coaching.
What are the long-term advantages of this course?
Students get a qualification and they do a couple of units here which has a direct link for the Associate or Bachelors’ programmes anywhere in the world. They complete certain units of the courses here. This will have a link-up with the advanced modules in certain other countries. So those who want to pursue their higher education in sports, the courses they do here can be transferred. That is the main idea. Those who wish to have a career in sports will also benefit from this course, which will have 40% theoretical studies with the other 60% being practical in nature. Holders of this certificate can join schools as sport coaches and will be called upon to officiate local league football games. The real sports personalities; we would like to interact with them. We want them to train the trainers who’re on the field and also the professionals to train the local talent. After sometime, possibly they can take over the training initiative. That is the reason we're trying to do this with a good organisation, which is already experienced in this field.
How does Oman’s strategic location in the world help promote this course?
A strategic location would be Oman because it is a non-controversial and peaceful place so people can come here and we want to make this as a centre, a hub of the entire Middle East. You don't have these sports related courses, particularly with this line of thought: trying to offer and link up these courses for further education if students are interested in sports careers. People now are getting convinced that sports can also become a career. There are parents who are also now seeing various ways of making their children's dream come true. This is the initial step and if we see that there's a lot of future for sports as a career we want to make it more organised, linking up with the Oman Football Association. With their patronage, possibly, there will be a continuity of the game, with the activities on one side, and in future we would like to associate with other sports bodies so something can be done in a better way for sports as a career.
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