School sport resumes in January – Rakgare
Calistus Kolantsho | Saturday October 7, 2023 06:00
During President Mokgweetsi Masisi's kgotla meeting in Bobonong yesterday, Rakgare said they have met with teachers' unions to find a solution to school sport.
“School sport will return in January. We have met with unions four times already and will meet for the fifth time on Monday.
It is our intention as government to do everything possible to make sure that School Sport resumes,” he said. Botswana Sectors of Educators (BOSETU) secretary-general, Tobokani Rari confirmed that they have met with the minister but said it is difficult to tell if school sport will resume in January. “We met him, yes about four times, where preliminary relationship management engagements at the highest level were discussed.
These meetings have resulted in the ministry sharing with unions a proposal on how school sport could be run,” he said. Rari said the unions, BOSETU and Botswana Teachers Union (BTU) assembled a technical team to look at the proposal and have since given the ministry its response. He said the technical teams of both parties will meet to discuss the proposal on Monday. Rari said discussions with teachers have not started. “Discussions with our members have not started yet, what we had is only an exchange of documents.
Discussions commence on Monday and we will take it from there,” he added, saying government had to pay about P32 million to teachers for their participation in the 2019 ball games. In September 2020, MYSC and the Ministry of Basic Education decided to set up a joint task team on school sport. The main aim of the team was to develop a sustainable and inclusive model for competitive sport. In the report, the team established that there was no control over how many teachers could be involved in sport, which could balloon the bill.
Meanwhile, Rakgare said phase one construction of the Bobonong Stadium is complete. The first phase involved the construction of a boundary wall and ticket sales kiosks.
“The contractor did a good job but we are now having challenges with the contractor of phase two which is the athletics track and lawn,” he said. The P5 million sport facility will have a football pitch with artificial turf, an athletics track, ablutions, netball and volleyball courts, changing rooms, kiosks and stands. Rakgare was responding to a question from the Village Development Committee, which raised concern that the sport facility was taking too long to be completed.