NIMS-Dubai set UAE benchmark in sports

The 2013-14 NIMS-Dubai volleyball squad with officials. Supplied photo

Dubai: The schools in the multi-stream UAE educational setup have their own curricula development programmes in sports in the absence of a single platform approach here. The more active inter school events in the UAE are usually seen among the CBSE stream institutions which have a common platform here, the Gulf and back in India to assess the standards though it is several notches below the Open age group mainstream sports meets at the national level.

Khaleej Times is running a pre-season series covering schools of the various streams here, the first of which appeared a fortnight ago, highlighting the pre-season achievements of New Indian Model School (NIMS), Sharjah.

In this edition we take a look at the performances of NIMS-Dubai during the 2013-14 season.

NIMS-Dubai has been in the news mainly because of their all-conquering volleyball teams during the past decade. Traditionally they are strong due to the foundation and development programmes set up by the former state level player M.A. Nishtar, the sports department head at the school. He has been nurturing youngsters for over 23 years. Nishtar said: “We have a management which gives sports a lot of importance. The academic year 2013-14 was another successful run for us. The whole hearted support from the teachers, instructors and parents were instrumental in the success.

“The newly built multipurpose sports complex in our campus gives us a bigger platform for our players to sharpen their skills and also to sustain our inter school matches. Some of our talented players are on scholarships with us and have gone on to get seats in leading institutions through the sports quota in India.”

“We try to overcome the usual problem of all schools of losing the leading players when they enter the 12th grade. The talent pool is always maintained from the base we get out of the inter house events where the eighth and ninth graders slip into the main stream through systematic coaching,” Nishtar added.

Today, NIMS Dubai have also made their mark in other disciplines like soccer, basketball and badminton. In volleyball, NIMS-Dubai were in the limelight in the various inter school championships including the open tournaments of schools.

moni@khaleejtimes.com