Dear Editor,

    I am writing to talk about whether schools should allow the public to use their sports facilities after school hours.  Although the suggestion might not seem very favorable to students at first sight, personally, I would still choose to support this motion and there are some good reasons for it.

    Firstly, I think it is safe to let the public use our sports facilities after school.  I know some people might have an illusion that the public might steal the things in our school.  Nevertheless, I don’t think this would be a real issue as only some of the selected facilities would be opened to the public and they are not going to tour around the school.  What’s more, if we allow the pubic to use the sports facilities after school, the government can hire some security guards to look after the school and the cost of this would still be much lower than setting up similar facilities elsewhere.  Also, lots of schools already have CCTV installed in different areas, which means if someone steals things in the school, we can check the record and let the police investigate the matter.  So, there could hardly be many safety issues in terms of the schools’ property.

    Secondly, some might think that the sports facilities are a possession of the school and we should not share them with the public.  But that’s not true.  Schools are not the same as those fancy private club houses and no one should privatize the facilities in the schools.  True, students should have the right to use those facilities.  But why can’t we let others use them when we do not?  As our school is funded by the government, it is the money from the public that is supporting us, students, for our free education.  So, it is unreasonable not to let the public use those sports facilities in our school after school hours.  Even if the facilities could get damaged more easily because of the additional use, the government would be responsible for the maintenance fee and the schools would not need to worry about it.

    Thirdly, some people might argue that if we let the public come to our school, the loss of privacy would be a concern.  Nonetheless, the school is not a place for privacy in the first place.  Hardly could anyone find any private matters when they are using facilities like the basketball court, table tennis or the gym.  Besides, many schools are used as venues for election days or public exams and we have not encountered any structural problems with these in the past.  So, experience tells us that school facilities do have other uses besides teaching and learning.

    All in all, I think it is fine to let the public use the sports facilities in our school as long as we provide sufficient instructions and restrictions.  I hope no one would be deprived of the right to do sports because of unnecessarily selfish reasons.

Yours faithfully,

Name: Zara Wong
Class: 4A (15)