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Min Makhosini Hlongwane
MY contemporaries will agree with me that when we were growing up sport was just viewed as an extra-curricular activity. It was nothing to be taken seriously particularly in rural areas. There was extra emphasis on classroom learning than out-of-classroom learning, hence the pedagogical derogative of sport and recreation as “extra-curricular”. On the opposite extreme, the then white schools prioritised learning in the field of play. Several sport codes were offered in such schools and technical training was abundant.
Coming from a background of education, being a former teacher myself; I can attest to the fact that Zimbabwe’s teacher training programmes were less emphatic on the role of sport promotion. This absolutely substantiates that there was a deliberate policy of promoting marginalisation of the majority in sport. To this end, one can safely argue that the dismissal of sport and recreation activities in the educational system was only a racist project aimed at alienating the majority from the benefits that sport has in terms of promoting human livelihood. This means that the scarce distribution of sport was only an institutionalised mechanism alienating the majority from accessing sport.
This perspective was also achieved through a deliberate dichotomous distribution of sport facilities as sport was classified into two streams of high and low culture. In this case, low culture sport refers to the sport facility distributions one found in the high densities/townships of our country and in the rural areas. This includes your soccer, your volley ball and netball facilities. On the other side that is where one would find cricket, swimming, rowing, bowling, tennis, hockey and chess. These and other codes constituted what I would refer to as high culture sport.
Right up to early post-independence this colonially framed structure of the sport sector exposed the previously marginalised societies to further marginalisation in this respect. However, because these societies were overtly misled to think that sport is of no high social significance there was a high level of complacency to this myth. In the process, a darker side of coloniality was being nurtured. Sport related bursaries remained a preserve of particular schools which were conservative in their salient and yet silent approach to sport promotion at the expense of mainstreaming sport.
At the end, this meant that students from the historically marginalised communities were previously denied access to self actualisation through sport.
This meant that all institutions of learning from primary to tertiary level whose intended reach was the majority were systematically incapacitated to promote sport.
This explains that we are in a serious state of crisis in terms of transcending the colonially set benchmarks as far as access to sport and recreation is concerned. While the condition of this crisis may go unnoticed it is imperative for us to seriously take heed of indigenising the sport and recreation sector with the same effort we have used to liberate our land, industry, commerce and mining sector.
In attempting to address this challenge we must be able to make sure that every university in the country becomes a centre of sport and recreation excellence. In so doing, we will be adequately responding to the deficit of scientific distribution of sport infrastructure and equipment.
This recommendation is in tandem with Government’s aspiration to have universities as sport academies. That way we will be able to produce astute sportsmanship in a way that does not only produce professional sport experts, but will guarantee mass production of elite athletes for podium sport performance. This is being practiced by countries that have reached the tertiary stage of their development in terms of sport and recreation and if we are to compete with these we must be well capacitated and the university serves as that conveyer belt for this proposal.
While this may appear as a strategy for heightening the sport and recreation human capital, I should also indicate that this approach speaks to matters of promoting wellness. As such, if the university takes the lead in this regard sedentary habits will be aborted hence leading healthy population.
So wellness must constitute a particular space in the university curriculum. This strategy is essential as it paves the path for situating the university at the centre of national development through sport and recreation
The policy mitigations of the sport and recreation sector’s crisis
It is no coincidence that Lupane State University is situated in Matabeleland North Province which is comprised of comprised of seven districts namely: Lupane, Tsholotsho, Nkayi, Hwange, Binga, Bubi and Umguza. These districts represent the communities that our policy prerogative seeks to engage in order to promote national development through sport and recreation. As such, the Community Sport and Recreation Club System was adopted by Cabinet on 2 May, 2017. The Community Sport and Recreation Club System is a lucid framework by Government aimed at establishing organised sport in previously disadvantaged communities. The Community Sport and Recreation Club System situates its relevance in integrating previously marginalised talent into mainstream sport and recreation activities of the nation. As a result, the Community Sport and Recreation Club System was principally put in place to envelope the following key development areas of the country’s sport and recreation sector through:
-Nurturing increased mass participation in sport and recreation activities;
-Facilitating the enhancement of human capital skills in coaching, administration, officiating and athlete development;
-Promotion of sport infrastructure development in all communities in Zimbabwe;
-Encouraging active and healthy lifestyles for all people as well as;
-Establishing a platform to contribute towards the realisation of national goals such as youth empowerment, inclusion, employment creation, unity, tolerance, entrepreneurship, economic development, nationhood and Ubuntu/Hunhu (GoZ 2017).
Having articulated the clear policy objectives that we have effected to address distribution discrepancies as far as access to sport and recreation is concerned; it is important for me to call upon the university to be at the fore of disseminating this agenda.
However, I should also note that the Community Sport and Recreation Club system is a sequel of the National Sport and Recreation Policy which has given legal expression of how sport administration can be effected to promote national development.
T0 this end, we have been compelled to revise the ongoing Zimbabwe National Youth Games through as strategy aimed at operationalising mass national participation in sport and recreation through a migration from the narrow competitive structure to a wider net cast approach to sport and recreation promotion. Through the revised approach of the Zimbabwe National Youth Games, talent will be drawn from Ward level, District level,
Provincial level up to National level in a pyramidal progression which is in tandem with the Community Sport and Recreation Club System.
On the other hand, the horizontal development of the games has paved the path for the inclusion of additional five sport and recreation provinces namely the: Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF); Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP); Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services (ZPCS); Zimbabwe Tertiary Institutions Sports Union (Zitisu) and Agricultural Colleges.
The additional participation of these institutions in line with the Revised Zimbabwe National Youth Games Strategy is aimed at augmenting the competitive structure to a total value of 15 participating provinces. At the same time, the games will provide an opportunity for the nation to be drawn to en masse participation in sport and recreation.
It is in this context that the university becomes essential in intervening in this policy direction to give life to these concepts aimed at promoting national development through sport and recreation.
The ongoing (just ended) Youth Games have attracted a greater part of our communities and this indicates how much our policies in sport and recreation have quenched the historical thirst of our people to play. Therefore, as the Ministry of Sport and Recreation calls the nation to partake in sport through the “Let Us Play Zimbabwe” mantra, I urge Lupane State University to provide the learning platform to guide this call for the nation to play.
As I conclude this lecture, I am calling on all of us to take part in this agenda of promoting national development through sport and recreation.
I thank you.
-The Minister of Sport and Recreation, Hon Makhosini Hlongwane was speaking at the Lupane State University Alumni Association Public Lecture in Bulawayo recently.
Sidumisile Mabena