The rise of Mahatma Gandhi Memorial High School in Fiji’s secondary schools’ athletics scene should not be a surprise to people, says the school’s board chairman Jitesh Patel.
The Vatuwaqa school, known for its academic prowess, created history over the weekend after winning the Fiji Finals overall girls’ title for the first time after taking a serious approach towards sporting excellence four years ago.
Patel said MGM’s presence was first made known when Kesaia Boletakanakadavu was crowned sprint queen in 2022 and 2023.
“When people say it’s a surprise, I don’t think it should be a surprise that MGM has taken it this year. If you go back, if you have been following this, it was building up and this is a fruit of that hard work done, not only by the coaches, but the schoolteachers too who are our support system,” Patel told The Fiji Times.
“I was the vice president of the board at that time, and I spoke to the vice principal of the school (at that time), Rajeshwar Prasad. He approached me and told me that he had a vision for MGM.
“He is a very experienced PEMAC (physical education, music, art, and crafts) personality, vice principal of the school, and he told me that he saw that we could do something about the gap at MGM.
“Like we were doing well in everything – we were doing well in soccer, we were doing well with the academic aspects, so why don’t we bring another dimension? And he discussed with me that not all children have the ability in academic, so we needed to take a holistic approach.”
Patel said this year’s success was the result of a vision that was sown four years ago and took form through the support rendered by their support system.
