adminBefittingly the Government has a full ministry charged with the responsibility to promote and supervise various sporting activities such as netball, football, soccer, rugby, tennis, handball, volleyball and athletics, among others undertaken at various social levels from primary schools to tertiary colleges.
The Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture’s appendages such as National Association for Primary Heads (Naph) and National Association for Secondary Heads (Nash) oversee and promote the running and management of sports in primary and secondary schools respectively. Most primary and secondary schools in urban set-ups conduct netball, soccer, athletics, and tennis and rugby tournaments, among other competitions.
The Sport and Recreation Commission (SRC) is lauded for supporting its sports affiliates such as the Zimbabwe Rugby Union, Zimbabwe Football Association (Zifa) and Amateur Athletics Association of Zimbabwe (AAAZ) which all have their feeder cords traced from that grassroots especially in primary schools where potential sports talent is identified and nurtured through various sporting activities in schools. Soccer, netball and athletics are very famous in most rural primary and secondary schools. Not much rugby, tennis, chess, basketball or handball are conducted in rural primary and secondary schools and lack of financial and human resources support have been identified as the three main factors undoing the development of these sporting disciplines.
Notwithstanding the potential and passionate inclination of some rural schools to sport, the absence of a substantive and recurrent material support for netball, soccer and athletics at school, cluster, district or provincial levels, remains a critical concern and efforts must be made to ameliorate this situation. Rural schools’ sport budgets are non-existent since they rely on unpredictable collections paid and sometimes not paid in affiliation fees from schools which survive on weak revenue bases of economically-challenged rural parents; some of whom do not understand the value of sports to their children. Their bookish mentality tells them that sport is for the less-gifted children who must be consigned to a football pitch or an athletics track.
Most parents have showers of praise for their children who excel in Mathematics or English but have bitter words when the same children bring a gold, silver, or bronze medal for excelling in athletics.
A rural parent and father to four school-going children, Mr Sicelo Sibanda, has no kind words to parents who do not support schools sport activities. He said such an attitude is detrimental to the child’s development and future career options.
He said it was useless to force a child to read or write when he/she was gifted in sports.
However, some parents feel that the obligation to financially support sports is not theirs. They feel that the Government must put in place a special sports grant meant to fund rural sports instead of compelling parents to pay sports levies.
A member of the School Development Committee (SDC) in one of the schools in Umguza District who spoke on condition of anonymity implored the Government to wholly subsidise sports levy paid by parents to Nash and Naph at clusters, district or provincial level.
In a different interview, a Naph Matabeleland North provincial executive member concurred with the parents representative asserting that sports financial support must come from Government’s special grants for sports instead of bothering parents who are failing to raise sports levy.
“Naph has not been collecting much sports levies from parents. Government must consider redeeming sports through a sound sports funding,” said the Naph member.
In the past, the Government has managed to fund various schools’ activities and the Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM) is the Government education facility meant to help the underprivileged and orphaned children at both primary and secondary schools. Maybe a facility like BEAM will go a long way towards supporting sports in rural areas.
The Government through the Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture is a component and cannot be seen putting emphasis on education while sports, arts and culture are not funded. A Basic Sports Acquisition Module (BASAM) must be proposed in schools to help athletes like its equivalent BEAM that helps children with levies, tuition and exam fees.
The Matabeleland North education directorate is highly lauded for its unwavering endeavours of promoting a diversity of sporting activities in schools despite numerous challenges faced by schools in the administration of sports. On 7 February, Bubi District education officials, sports personnel and teachers drawn from various schools in Bubi District converged on Somvubu Secondary School in Inyathi where a national golf specialist, trainer and newspaper columnist writing on the column “Golf in Schools” Mr
Tavenganiswa Mabikacheche, took them through basic golf rules and activities aimed at imparting this former white-only sport to children through teachers.
Mr Mabikacheche, in his introductory remarks, lamented that basic sports was neglected in rural areas through lack of funds.
“Rural children must move with times in sports. Sport is not only done for fitness reasons but provides life-long opportunities for children,” said the golf guru.
It remains clear that sports in rural schools remain stunted due to the absence of a fund to promote sport activities such as netball, soccer, athletics, golf, tennis and volleyball. Money is essential in buying all sports equipment, holding coaching or refresher courses and transporting athletes to sports venues.
It is noted that due to the absence of a sports fund or grant to support rural schools, some schoolchildren walk for 10 kilometres to get to athletics venues. There is no reliable transport to ferry athletes and where it is available, open trucks, albeit discouraged, remain the only cheap option. Most officials at these games
leave a lot to be desired. They officiate on archaic and obsolete rules which later inconvenience athletes at other levels of competition. Noting that some sports rules are dynamic, it is compulsory that all schools’ officials be taken through refresher courses or routine to update and improve their performance in school, cluster, district, provincial or national competitions.
A physical education major and school teacher at Emhlangeni Primary School in Bubi District Mr Velempini Bongani, said that refresher or coaching clinics were very important for revamping performance in sports.
Obviously, the renewal of rules calls for a budget to finance these coaching clinics.
A substantive sports grant for rural schools must be put in place to arrest all the financial challenges that inhibit the running of coaching clinics, running of sports, transportation of athletes to sports venues, the feeding of athletes and trainers and the acquisition of relevant equipment and materials such as uniforms, booths, tracksuits, etc.
A bookish mentality must be done away with and parents be made to understand that sports is as important as education.
Peter Ndlovu, the soccer ace and Kirsty Coventry, the swimming sensation, are living examples that sports is a career like academic education. Better Schools Programme of Zimbabwe (BSPZ) awards organisers must award sports and academic education equally at all levels. The trend is that academic achievers get superior prizes while sports achievers receive inferior ones. Even the fact that there is no Basic Sports Acquisition Module (BASAM) in schools is a glaring sign that a paradigm shift in the administration and national sports policy is necessary if sports is to improve. Therefore parents, schools and policy makers must join hands and promote sports in rural areas like what urban schools experience. Sports and education are equals in the curriculum and both must receive equal recognition especially in rural areas.
Online Reporter