School sport remains a headache for gov't
Calistus Kolantsho | Monday March 30, 2026 06:00
Last year, the Minister of Sport and Arts (MoSA), Jacob Kelebeng, launched school sport at the Lobatse Sport Complex in a move aimed at reviving the extracurricular activity, which was suspended in 2020.
For six years, Botswana has gone without organised school sport. Whilst others may reduce the period to ‘just six years,’ the reality has been devastating.
Grassroots development begins in schools, and the absence of structured sport has created a generational gap that will echo for decades. Beyond six years, a generation lost, with primary school students from Standard One to Standard Seven, learners have had no exposure to sport.
That is seven full years of missed opportunity at the most formative stage of physical and social development. At the secondary school level, all Form One to Form Five students have grown without sport.
That is five years lost during adolescence, the prime time for skill acquisition and competitive growth. Tertiary institutions, first and second year students missed the chance to refine their abilities and transition into elite pathways.
When combined, these gaps amount to 14 years of development cycles, not merely six. In sport science, it takes an average of 16 years to fully develop a player from grassroots to elite level. Botswana has effectively lost an entire generation. There is a ripple effect on clubs and sporting codes. Rugby and other niche codes, the current crop of players in their 20s, are the last to have benefited from proper school sport systems.
They will carry the flag for the next decade, with no pipeline of younger talent to support them. Clubs are already feeling the strain; they are forced to rely on dwindling numbers of partially developed athletes.
This weakens competitiveness and sustainability. For national teams, without grassroots feeders, long-term talent identification and succession planning collapse. The absence of school sport is not only missed opportunities for competitions, but it also undermines physical health, emotional, moral growth and community cohesion. The Long-Term Athlete Development Plan (LTADP) has effectively been discarded, leaving Botswana without a structured pathway to nurture future champions. When Kelebeng refers to ‘just six years’, it overlooks the compounding reality that Botswana has lost around 20 years of sporting development.
The last generation of properly developed athletes is already in their 20s, and unless urgent action is taken, the country risks a vacuum in talent, leadership, and community benefits that sport naturally provides. This is not simply six years missed; it is a generational crisis.
Negotiations between the government and teacher unions are taking a long time to be concluded. During the Lobatse launch, unions were not invited to the event. School sport was suspended in March 2020 due to disputes over teacher allowances and a lack of funds.