Developing footballers in Jamaica..........

[Karl]

ahm.. our schools can't even produce what they are supposed to produce.. academically qualified people..

Fact!

Now yuh want add Professional Football Players to dem portfolio ?

lol ! woieee !!

Graduates - age v age - to world accepted quality as per the first world football nations..

Profundity mussi your miggle name to rath...

Nonsense final sentence as it is based on ignorance of what I am proposing!

I shall repeat for the millionth+ time - The schools and colleges are to raise the standards of their graduates! Improve on education! Deliver a more rounded graduate to the market for same!

Those markets are:
- Age-group teams as per those competing in FIFA tournaments...U-17 and Olympic TEAMs. The outlier shall be that some of those graduates will show exceptional quality and shall be able to move into higher level environment (even to top tier professional clubs in top tier leagues).

In any case, it is the rung on which our local clubs shall start to accure improved quality teachers=coaches and administrators. It is transfer of knowledge and improvement on thinking on the way forward.
- Firstly thought on, "what is now currently being done, is not working!"

- Need to get rid of the current teachers=coaches or force them to improve knowledge of the game and acquire teaching skills;

- "The how of improving the skills of the teachers=coaches"!

- What is currently being done in top world "football schools/academies"
and how to transfer same to the "schools and colleges";

- Implementation - All-Island...from youngest to National TEAM players of best practices at each level.

Don1 - I have always thought you were a teacher. Do not tell me I guessed wrong?

The education system is conceived and built whereby there must be an integrated progressive system for the acquiring of knowledge and skills and as the learner=student advances ever improved knowledge base and access to knowledge and ever increasing maturity. All teachers know that in the context of school population overview, it is the exception that has even high school graduates on par with the skilled technician or professional. No teacher would expect as a matter of course, high school footballers who have been exposed to highest quality professional "football teacher-coaches" to graduate as top tier footballers.

It would be expected that those graduate footballers with sufficient potential would be suitable for movement to advanced teaching environs.

All teachers can reasonably expect is that the graduates leave with the tools to move onward. Teachers know that all with the tools shall NOT move on for a great many and varied reasons.

...but it is madness to overlook the need to graduate each footballer with fulfillment of maximum age appropriate potential. It is self-evident that in our Jamaica context - 12 NPL teams, 1 each of national teams (How many 12? 6 for males and 6 for females?) - of limited route for advancement that locally that extremely few have avenues to advance. ...and even for the best of our best it is still a very few that shall win opportunities outside of the island.

That in no way suggests that the education at the schools and colleges should be less than first class. - Incidentally that also holds true for the academic subjects!

Some great Jamaicans...Marcus Garvey, Norman Manley, Michael Manley, Bob Marley.... and others keep asking us not to limit ourselves. We should do so! We need to wish for and want for our people the best! ...and that includes the best teaching being supplied in our schools and colleges.

The resistance on this board to best practices in our schools and colleges - and dare I say clubs and our JFF - defy logic and is self-defeating! That resistance has us playing football as we currently do!!!

[Don1]

Don1 - I have always thought you were a teacher. Do not tell me I guessed wrong?

Much betta dan dat.. I entered a great College @ 10+ y.o. suh anyting afta dat superflous .. Wooiiee mi True Blues!

[Karl]

Way too much Karl, for continuity, sustainability and just plain financial survival we must start simple and must create a hierarchical type system based on performance, talent and will so that the top ten percent of football possible athletes go through the Academy system with the best teachers, best techniques etc etc, this is just a starting point. But starting points that are sustainable create the basis for longevity and institutionalization.

You make an interesting point on previous investment made, however the bottom line on that is that investment is sparse and like throwing a thousand seeds of fertilizer across Jamaica and expecting growth. Growth must be targeted and focused on reaping the cream of the crop and Spartans make!

Achievement and competition to get to the peak high academy system will create energy untold and if well managed is the only thing that can get Jamaicans moving as we know Jamaicans can move and aspire for the highest mount.

Believe me when I tell you that any bottom up catch every player at the start of their football life is inconceivable for Jamaica for at least the next twenty years, we have neither the resources, financial, educational system to produce such trained personnel or enough talented people willing to sacrifice their future for meager returns in coaching in such a system to sustain such a thing and such a program will fail miserably or hobble along on crutches with little or no impact, we must have the tip of the spear strategy, focused, sharp, aggressively identifying the best, developing the best at each age group and still retaining enough fluidity in the system to recycle dropouts that nature, get stronger and faster and wiser and can displace those who got the better of them in years past, such a system is manageable and very possible and can be started immediately with strong and visible impact within five years. Export of players to foreign leagues, building a better national team, creating a Jamaican style football which can permeate every crevice and recess within the whole as you are hoping to do in reverse and spending untold millions in a program destined to fail miserably like all great big idea jamaican programs in the past.

Well written, Stoni.
...but you sell our people short (...as has the JFF leadership).

...and you are bang on target that "Rome was not built in a day".

My big problem is the cost of the scouting system needed to 'cull our best talents' from a talent pool that is of itself not in any system that allows for its best being even known (observed)...and the cost to set up and run the academies vs the use of already built physical structures, 1000+ learning environments, competitive units, etc., etc. needing upgrading on quality of administrators and teachers only!!! It is basically sourcing of new funding vs optimum utilization of funding already in place!!!

[Karl]

Much betta dan dat.. I entered a great College @ 10+ y.o. suh anyting afta dat superflous .. Wooiiee mi True Blues!

[Muadib]

Optimum utilization of funding in place would involve not diluting it across 1,000 institutions..

If yuh want us to convert some institutions posing as learning centers.. juss seh suh and dun.. may as well put the infrastructure to good use !

[Karl]

Optimum utilization of funding in place would involve not diluting it across 1,000 institutions..

If yuh want us to convert some institutions posing as learning centers.. juss seh suh and dun.. may as well put the infrastructure to good use !

may as well put the infrastructure to good use !?

What are you suggesting? ...surely not that the investment in schools should not be put to good use?

---------

Back to your first sentence:

Optimum utilization of funding in place would involve not diluting it across 1,000 institutions..

As it relates to our schools that is an interesting observation.
Musings on your comment as it relates to our schools:
Context must be 'end point' of focus on a each discipline as age appropriate graduate results are targeted... -

1. Should number of disciplines being offered be contracted?

2. Should number of disciplines attempted be limited by GOJ/Ministry of Education policy?

3. Should there be mandatory disciplines that each level institution offers?

4. Should there be, for example, Science focused schools, Language Arts focused schools, Foreign language focused schools, Schools where cricket is the focus, Schools where track and field is the focus?
...football, etc?

The question is how would that fit within "best for our youth" and "best for our country"?

...but what exactly are you proposing?

[Muadib]

Ah wheh di ?!

I propose that unnuh stap try re-create the wheel because di road dem ah yard bumpy and nuh cut straight..

[Bricktop]

Ah wheh di ?!