Ministry in u-turn as Olesitse heads to Argentina
Calistus Kolantsho | Friday October 5, 2018 14:04
Last week, Botswana National Olympic Committee (BNOC) chief executive officer, Tuelo Serufho had announced that the team would be travelling without the talented athlete due to the pending Junior Certificate Examinations.
After meetings amongst officials from the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development (MYSC), Botswana Integrated Sport Association (BISA), BNOC and Botswana National Sport Commission (BNSC), Olesitse has been allowed to join the rest of the team on the plane to South America.
“It was not our effort alone but involved other stakeholders from MYSC, BISA and BNSC. Our position in sport is that you cannot separate sport, education and culture programmes, which are mandatory for young athletes at Youth Games,” Serufho told Mmegi Sport yesterday.
He said for them, at this stage, they would not know if Olesitse’s better chance in life lies in education or sport.
He said to that extent, their position is that he should be given the opportunity to explore both, without either being compromised.
“Just to illustrate that as the BNOC, we were not just focussed on getting the athlete to Argentina and had no regard for his education. We facilitated that for the entire period that public schools were on recess recently, Olesitse’s teachers were around to give him tutorials as well as prepare revision packs for him,” he said.
“The intention was that two members of his delegation (both teachers) would take him through revision packs in Argentina.” Serufho said the issue of athletes having to balance sport and education is not new, and going forward, they would be confronted with more such cases.
“In fact, I was recently advised that when we hosted the CAF Under-17 Championship in Gaborone in 1997, most members of the Egyptian team that won the competition wrote their high school exit examinations at Maru A Pula School.
A lot of the players went on to become successful internationals players, making a lot of money in the process,” he said. Serufho said in the region, there are many examples of athletes that successfully juggled sport and education and went on to do really well in life. “One such is Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe (now Minister of Sport) and Kevin Anderson of South Africa,” he added. BISA president, Joshua Gaotlhobogwe said they were also shocked by the initial decision of the ministry.
He said it was at that point that BNOC started engaging them. “We advised as an association, on how they could handle the matter.
Of course they had made efforts to contact the school and Botswana Examination Council (BEC). BEC was willing to let him go, provided that proper arrangements were made for him to sit for exams,” he said.
Gaotlhobogwe said acting MoBE permanent secretary, Simon Coles made it clear that it should be academics first.
He said the ministry felt that the parents might turn against them if Olesitse failed because he had gone to compete in athletics outside the country.
Gaotlhobogwe said MYSC permanent secretary, Kago Ramokate and BNSC CEO, Falcon Sedimo were roped in to assist in resolving the matter.
“I was happy that they released him. Our fear was that the athlete had made up his mind that he was going to the Olympics. If suddenly he was told he was not going, it was going to destroy him forever,” he said.