Plea to extend Karate Training for Girls to 10 Months

Erode District Sports Karate Do Association functionaries led by its president Sakthivel submitted a petition at the public grievance meeting of  district collector H. Krishnanunni at the Collectorate seeking to extend karate training for government school girl students from 3 months to 10 months in a year.

They said ''under the Centrally sponsored scheme, the training programme was launched by school education department nearly 4 years back to improve the self defence of girls in the society while many sexual harassment complaints were reported in the nation.''

Under the scheme the Karate training could be given for girl students studying from 6th to 10th std students for just one hour only for 2 days in a week. It means a student can attend just 24 hours of training  during the 3 month training period starting from October. The training is far inadequate to ensure self defence if a girl faces any problem.

Besides it is only optional. So,  the training period should be increased to 10 months to raise self confidence of girls and competitions be held and certificates be given to all trainees. Now,  just Rs 3000 is fixed as honororium for a coach to train students in a school. On an average, a coach can work in 2 schools.

As the honorarium is much less, it should be hiked to at least Rs 5000. In the district, over 100 coaches were involving in the programme which can be extended to government aided schools also where many poor students were studying, they said.