The World School Championship Orienteering for 2021, originally scheduled for June in Belgrade, Serbia has been moved to September 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic. The WSCO is organized by the International School Sport Federation (ISF) and is independent of the International Orienteering Federation (IOF).
A Memorandum of Understanding promoting cooperation between the IFS and IOF was signed in 2016, without a requirement for participating school teams to be members of IOF. In addition, the teams need to be teams representing schools from a nation rather than national teams composed of students of various ages. Any school can participate, without any requirement of an affiliation with the IOF and thus with the national federation (OUSA).
ISF World Schools Championships (WSC) are events characterized by a balanced program between sport and educational content: the balance between sport and education is to create awareness about the role of sport in putting forward topics such as fair play, healthy lifestyle, respect, inclusion. The event is a little more comparable to a Jamboree, with mandatory participation of all athletes in all the planned activities, including non-sport ones.
Photos: ISF WSC Orienteering Facebook page
The dates for WSOC 2021 have been moved from July to September, with the updated bulletin published here. The registration fee for a school is dependent on whether it is affiliated with the country’s IFS member organization, which for the USA is the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), however, orienteering is not a sport currently listed with the AAU. Schools interested in participating with a team at the WSCO may want to contact the AAU directly to see what options would be available to take advantage of AAU’s membership in the IFS.
Schools are not required to be affiliated with Orienteering USA or OUSA member clubs in order to participate in the WSCO events, but many OUSA clubs have liaisons with local schools to facilitate promotion of the sport at the school level.