Schools sport future under spotlight
Calistus Kolantsho | Friday February 7, 2020 11:41
Pressure is mounting for MoBE to hand over the handling of schools sport to the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development (MYSC).
According to information reaching this publication, BOPSSA National Council held a meeting over the weekend to discuss the future of schools sport.
The meeting was informed that the association has long requested for funds for an Annual General Meeting (AGM), but there has been no response from the ministry.
“The administration council requested that priority should be the payment of ball sport allowances before the AGM. Basic Education Permanent Secretary has announced that currently they do not have funds to pay ball sport allowances for 2019.
The payments are expected to be made either in May or June. Allowances for athletics have been paid,” the meeting’s minutes read.
MoBE needs P30 million to pay teachers’ allowances.
BOPSSA president, Busani Segweni told Mmegi Sport that they were meeting Molao today to discuss the future of schools sport. He said it appears the issue of overtime is the monkey on government’s back.
“Initially, we had proposed that teachers be paid P500 per day, but now the ministry is proposing an amount less than P200. The challenge is to come up with a model that would work. If the model fails, then school sport would be moved to MYSC,” he said.
Segweni said the argument raised by MoBE is that their primary mandate is education not sport.
He said it has been suggested that BOPSSA and Botswana Integrated Sport Association (BISA) should merge to establish Botswana School Sport Association (BOSSA).
According to the minutes, the ministry is still to communicate on how athletics would be carried out in terms of payments.
“We await the correspondence from MoBE and it appears this year’s athletics would be on voluntary basis,” the minutes further read.
BISA president, Joshua Gaotlhobogwe said he was unaware of the details of the meeting with the minister.
“Last year, we had a meeting with senior officials at the ministry so we do not know what they reported to the minister.
During our previous
interaction, we spoke about ways of taking sport forward,” he said.
Gaotlhobogwe said the issue is not about allowances, but the schools sport calendar.
He said there are no sport activities in schools at the moment, but normally by now schools are busy with pastoral (house) competitions. He said MoBE should communicate with schools in order for activities to commence.
For his part, Molao told Mmegi Sport that he is meeting all MoBE stakeholders, as the new minister, to understand their operations, to get to know each other and how they can relate going forward.