Lack of participation in school sports due to ineffective management

When I was a primary school and high school learner, I looked forward to this time of the year. Athletics! Picture: Tracey Adams/African News Agency (ANA)

When I was a primary school and high school learner, I looked forward to this time of the year. Athletics! Picture: Tracey Adams/African News Agency (ANA)

Published Jan 22, 2021

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by Brian Isaacs

Schools are scheduled to start on Monday, February 15, 2021, for students. Medical experts predict that the peak of the Covid-19 virus will be reaching South Africa sometime in late January 2021, and the level of infections will begin to drop. In the wake of all these predictions will it be safe for our students to participate in school sport and especially athletics this summer.

I know that before 1994, athletics in the schools of the poor was a key sport within the first term of the new year. After 1994, it no longer became an essential part of the academic year. With no financial assistance from government, schools found it difficult to organise inter-house athletics and inter-school athletics. Many schools withdrew from participating under the newly formed USSASA body (United School Sports Association of South Africa).

This sports body showed scant regard for its member schools, calling meetings at its discretion and stunting free debate among schools as to how to organise school sport and debate the crucial issue of sports facilities at schools and the availability of athletic venues for schools.

USSASA collapsed in the early 2010s amid rumours of wide-scale corruption. The control of its finances was never investigated. School sport now is jointly run by the Department of Culture and Sport (DCAS) and the provincial Education Departments.

Now, if these two departments cannot effectively make a success out of its departments, how can schools expect them to make a success of school sport?

Unfortunately, these two departments are responsible for the lack of participation in school sport in South Africa. It seems as if in SA, only schools of the rich with money can run successful sports programmes. The question I want to raise then is: " How did the South African Council on Sport (Sacos) from the 1970s to 1994 run successful sports programmes for the masses in SA?"

Very simply, dedication to the cause of getting the masses in SA to play sport and to cultivate a political ethos of no normal sport in an abnormal society. In talks with the racial sport "white" organisations and the establishment of the ANC-aligned National Sports Council (NSC ) in the early 1990s, Sacos called for a moratorium on all international sport for five years to normalise sport in SA.

The "white" sport bodies and NSC wanted international sport at all costs. Every effort was made to smash Sacos, and sadly for the masses, Sacos was smashed. In progressive political terms, the slogan – Memory is the weapon is apt now. The former Sacos president Frank v.d. Horst remains true to his principles, and up to today, calls for a new truly non-racial sports organisation that has the interests of the masses of South Africa at heart.

The poor must organise school sport. It has to regain control of sport from the clutches of most of the present greedy administrators in sport. The oppressed, with the experience of principled teachers and principled administrators, must rescue sport for the oppressed and especially the students but it must be done immediately.

I return to my question at the start of the article whether we should have athletics this year. All over the world, sport has restarted tentatively. Huge sporting events have been delayed. The world has learnt a lot about the Covid-19 virus and the steps it must take to curb/ prevent the virus from spreading. I believe that the same must happen in schools. Schools must take the necessary precautions when students participate in sport and especially in athletics. I believe athletics should happen at schools this year.

I know that some teachers feel mass participation by students in athletics is a waste of their time. I disagree. It is a sport where many life-lessons can be taught, such as getting to know your teachers and student compatriots better, competing against other schools in SA, builds long-lasting friendships.

As a teacher for 39 years, I enjoyed my interaction with patents, teachers (non-teaching staff and students) on the athletics field. Mens sana in corpore sano= a healthy mind in a healthy body.

* Brian Isaacs obtained a BSc (UWC) in 1975, a Secondary Teacher’s Diploma in 1976, BEd (UWC) in 1981, and MEd (UWC) in 1992. He is a former matriculant, teacher and principal at South Peninsula High School.

** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.

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