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Sikhumbuzo Moyo Senior Sports Reporter
THE government has called on the National Association of Primary Heads (Naph) and their secondary school counterparts (Nash) to utilise the tools at their disposal to deal with the age-cheating during sports competitions. Lazarus Dokora, the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, said it was sad that age cheating was still prevalent in schools despite the fact that everyone knows that it is illegal.

“By definition on its own, it is clear that age cheating is illegal and therefore a crime,” said Minister Dokora.

He said Naph and Nash leadership had at their disposal all the necessary tools to use in the fight against age cheating.

“It’s the heads of schools who should assist in the fight against age cheating because they have all the required information. Naph and Nash must therefore use the tools at their disposal,” said Minister Dokora in a telephone interview yesterday.

Over the years, Naph and Nash competitions have been marred by rampant age cheating claims with perpetrators seemingly going scot free.

Nash president Johnson Madhuku recently conceded age cheating was rampant and blamed the lack of technology.

He said government must buy a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine which schools can then use during competitions to screen pupils.

Calls have been made to criminalise age cheating during both schools and outside schools’ competitions.