Around 4000 school netball players representing 360 teams from across the island will battle it out for supremacy in the finals of Sri Lanka Schools Netball Nationals 2017 at the Vincent Dias Stadium, Badulla on August 3, 4 and 5. This was revealed to the media during a press briefing at the JAIC Hilton, Colombo recently.
The Education Ministry in collaboration with the Sri Lanka Schools Netball Association (SLSNA) organized the annual schools’ apex netball tournament with Nestle Lanka’s popular brand Milo continuing their unstinting sponsorship for the 26th year.
The selections for national finals were conducted in 15 regional centres where over 25,000 lasses competed under four age category groups, namely Under-13, U-15, U-17 and U-19. Each age category will field top four teams of each 15 regional tournaments, except for the junior most age category where six teams from each 15 centres will compete in the finals. The U-13 age category finals will play as a one segment while all other age category finals will be worked off in two main divisions, A and B, determined by the student population of a school. Schools have less than 1000 students will play in Division ‘B’ while the schools included over 1000 students will battle in Division ‘A’.
A felicitation ceremony in recognition of school netball talent at national and international levels was also held concurrently to the media briefing where six school players who went on to represent the country at two main international tournaments in 2017 were awarded plaques. Tharushi Ilangarathne of Visakha Vidyalaya, Colombo and L. Rashmi Divyanjali of Presbyterian College were members of the Sri Lanka Junior team to Asian Junior Netball Championship in Korea. Tharushi made her second foreign tour of the year representing Sri Lanka Youth team at the World Youth Netball Championship in Botswana along with Meloni Wijesinghe (Visakha Vidyalaya), Natasha Aluwihare (Hilwood College, Kandy), Sethmi Dhanoshi (HFC-Kurunegala) and Susima Bandara (HFC - Kurunegala). The head coach of Lankan team at World Youth Netball Championship, Janaki Gunasekara (Ex-Sports & Physical Education teacher - Kalutara BV) and the assistant coach Amalka Gunathilake (Sports & Physical Education teacher - HFC - Kurunegala) were also felicitated for their long term contribution for the betterment of netball sport.
Education Ministry’s sports consultant Sunil Jayaweera commended Nestle Lanka for their long term commitment to uplift the standard of netball and school sports as a whole. “Education Ministry started Schools Netball Nationals in 1992 and over the years the tournament was instrumental in producing national level players. We can see lot of school players getting selected to the national squad in recent times, which is a good omen for the sport. This year we have five school players in the national netball team. We have introduced a new age category structure for the tournament this year to assure more competition opportunity for all ages,” he explained.
Education Minister Akila Viraj Kariyawasam revealed that the government will introduce an insurance scheme to the school fraternity in August providing Rs 200,000 each coverage for every student, which will be a milestone in Sri Lankan school education. He was very optimistic about the future of Sri Lankan netball and said that netball is a very popular sport across the country. “As the government encourages school population to engage in at least one sports activity, netball will be the main choice of many school girls. Sports will play a vital role in education and we have taken policy decision to assure that prominent place to sports in school education. 3850 sports trainers will be recruited to education department and 22 gyms in sports schools will be upgraded soon. Sports will be included as an A/L subject in near future with the new education reforms,” minister revealed.
Sri Lanka Schools Netball Association president and Sirimavo Bandaranaike Vidyalaya principal R.A.M.R Herath, Education Ministry Sports Director Col. Manjula Kariyawasam, SLSNA officials, Nestle Lanaka vice presidents Norman Kannangara and Bandula Egodage were also present at the occasion.
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