Thumm looking for young Indonesian talent<\/p>\n
Hans Peter Thumm is helping Indonesia find and develop young
\nsporting talent under what he calls a strategic and comprehensive
\ntalent identification process.<\/p>\n
Thumm has been working in the country as a consultant under a
\ncooperative Germany-Indonesia project for about one year.<\/p>\n
Thumm's job is to develop a national strategy for systematic
\ntalent identification, which will be the basis for a long-term
\ncomprehensive strategy to eventually achieve greater success on
\nthe international level.<\/p>\n
He said that for any such strategy to succeed, there needed to
\nbe major improvements in physical education at schools and clubs
\nacross country.<\/p>\n
Based on his observations at schools over the past year, he
\nconcluded that due to the limited amount of sports facilities,
\nchildren in Indonesian schools had very little opportunity to
\nenhance their level of physical fitness, let alone their skill
\nlevel in particular sports.<\/p>\n
\"It's very hard to believe that out of some 38 million primary
\nand secondary school students across the country, not one has
\ntalent in to excel in sports. What a waste, that there has never
\nbeen a real effort to find and develop them,\" the 58-year-old
\ntold The Jakarta Post during an interview.<\/p>\n
Thumm, who has done similar projects in Nigeria, Malaysia and
\nNamibia, said that he had prepared a plan he expected to
\ntranslate into long-term success like he did in other countries,
\nbut with the one condition that he gets the full commitment of
\nthe government.<\/p>\n
He said that while schools in rural areas had plenty of space,
\nthey were unable to make use of it because of a limited concept
\nof physical education. And schools in urban areas mostly do not
\nhave the minimum requirement of space for sports fields,
\ngymnasiums, pools, etc., and in some cases, the students had to
\nuse public streets or venues surrounded by traffic to play or
\nexercise.<\/p>\n
He was also amazed to find that teachers were such poor
\nexamples of health and fitness educators, by sticking to their
\nsmoking habit.<\/p>\n
\"Such coaches\/teachers are unable to contribute to `character
\nbuilding' within a nation and should be replaced,\" Thumm said.<\/p>\n
\"As physical education (at schools) is the mother of sport,
\nIndonesia, in the long-run, can only excel at the international
\nlevel, when the quality of their P.E. programs at schools
\ntremendously improve and are seriously promoted,\" said the
\nStuttgart native.<\/p>\n
Thumm said, however, that most of the current physical
\neducation curricula had been simply copied from industrialized
\ncountries and therefore were not necessarily compatible here, due
\nto the different socio-cultural factors and the general
\nconditions between developing countries and industrialized ones.<\/p>\n
Sports in primary school should emphasize fun for kids and not
\nthe pressure to produce results at an early age in order to
\nsatisfy the egos of some teachers, he said.<\/p>\n
As only a maximum of three to five percent per class had the
\nphysical potential to fulfill the requirements of today's high
\nperformance sports, the schools must first concentrate on the
\ngeneral fitness of the other 95 percent and should make social
\nlearning through sports their real target, he said.<\/p>\n
However, since physical education was now a non-exam subject,
\nthere is a lack of awareness by politicians, their parties, the
\npublic in general and parents in particular, he said.<\/p>\n
According to Thumm, numerous researchers around the world have
\nproven that the standard of high performance sports in a country
\ncorrelates closely with the quality of the physical education
\nprograms in schools.<\/p>\n
\"That subject, however, is not sufficiently recognized as an
\nessential part of `general education', for character and nation
\nbuilding, in the national education policy,\" he said, while
\nadding that without a certain quality of physical education, the
\nnation's sports programs would not get the necessary supply of
\nfuture athletes.<\/p>\n
\"Leading individual sports like badminton, gymnastics and
\nathletics are already short of junior-level stars,\" he added.<\/p>\n
Moreover, Indonesia is also lacking an efficient system of
\ntalent identification, he said.<\/p>\n
The German-Indonesian project, therefore, will establish
\nwithin its strategy in talent identification at least one pilot
\nproject in Papua in close collaboration with local schools and
\nthe Athletic Association of Indonesia (PASI), while other
\nprovinces can follow after this example had been put successfully
\ninto place, he said.<\/p>\n
Young Papuan talent will be identified in 10 locations across
\nthe vast territory -- in Jayapura, Sentani, Kirung, Biak Serui,
\nSorong, Merauke, Wamena, Puncak Jaya and Timika with an estimated
\n4,900 participants in the 13 to 14 age group. This number will be
\ncut down to a maximum of 150 in six months, he said.<\/p>\n
Papua has been chosen as the pilot project because the local
\ngovernment there stated its tremendous support for the strategy,
\nand if the project succeeds in Papua, where people would need
\nextra effort in traveling from one place to another, it would
\nsurely work in other provinces with better infrastructure, said
\nThumm.<\/p>\n
According to Hendrik Barkeling, first secretary for public and
\ncultural affairs at the German Embassy in Indonesia, the Papua
\nproject was originally a government-to-government project to
\ndevelop a scheme for national systematic talent scouting, but it
\nwas delayed because Indonesia could not hold up their end.<\/p>\n
\"The delay was mainly due to the fact that because of
\nbudgetary restraints, the Indonesian partners were not in a
\nposition to provide the necessary resources as had been
\nstipulated in the agreement between the two governments,\" he
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
He added that after several discussions between the two sides,
\nthere would be improvement in the future, as the Indonesian
\ngovernment had confirmed that the necessary funds were available
\nfor implementing the first step of the talent scouting scheme,
\nwhich would take place in Papua.<\/p>\n
Menase Weyai, head of the Papua Sports and Youth Affairs
\nAgency, said that Papua had long been seen as top Indonesian
\nathletic stable, but the local government was lacking the
\nknowledge about how to identify them.<\/p>\n
\"With such a project we would learn how to `harvest' the
\nathletes, at the same time educate the locals,\" he said. -- Zakki P.
\nHakim<\/p>",
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
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