To give sports adequate attention and also provide an avenue of its students to hone their skills, Ogun State-based Trinity College has partnered a grassroots sports development firm, Dynaspro Promotions Limited, to start a sports academy in the school in 2024.

Expressing delight over the development, the school’s Director of Education, Mrs. Rebeca Adeyemo, described it as a long-time desire of the school to improve its sports activities.

According to the partnership, Dynaspro will help to coordinate the sports academy starting from January 2024, while an Easter football camp will also be organised by Dynaspro in collaboration with UK-based FCV Academy.

“The place of sport in educational development cannot be overemphasised. Apart from the physical alertness, which helps children to overcome the problems of the student life, research has shown a correlation between sport and improvement in academic performance because of the social skills and emotional skills as well as life skills that sport helps to build in the life of children.

“Our children in Trinity were excited when we announced we were partnering with Dynaspro Sports Promotion because a lot of them in United States and United Kingdom universities gained scholarships on the basis of their participation in sports, when we were not even doing it at a professional level. Now that we are partnering with Dynaspro, this will ensure that students will earn sports scholarships into the US, UK and even Canada on the basis of sports. It also helps their mental health as it helps them to develop the resilience spirit, when you fail, you don’t give up.

“We want our children as students in Trinity International College to develop that resilient spirit, that winning spirit and we are sure that they are winners. Parents have been excited since we announced it to them and the exciting part is that Dynaspro is also a partner of FCV in Britain.

“Invariably, we are bringing an international sporting academy based in the UK into Trinity International College,” she added. The school’s principal, Sunday Olajide, said the development would excite the students who have been yearning for such an opportunity.

“This is a welcome development as students and parents have been yearning for things like these. We have seen situations where some of our students left the school for a sports academy in the U.S. but now that we have our own academy, it is a welcome development. At least, it will promote the sport development in the school and many of them want to pursue sport as their career, this is a good pathway for them to achieve their goals and their expectations,” he said.

Also speaking on the partnership, Chief Executive Officer of Dynaspro, Oluseyi Oyebode, described it as another push for sports development in schools, while pledging their commitment to the initiative.

“The first thing that attracted us to the school is genuine love for school sport development. I’m very genuine and I think over the years, we’ve been looking for an opportunity where we can get a lot of facilities and that is what the school has and that has been the drive because the school openly accepted us as they were more passionate. A good partnership and a good love through sports development in Nigeria.”