Sport stakeholders failed pupils, Kodwa tells school sports indaba

South Africa’s sports sector has failed pupils, sport minister Zizi Kodwa said on Thursday as he kicked off the sport department’s two-day indaba in Johannesburg aimed at strengthening school sport.

Representatives from, among others, national federations and the departments of basic education (DBE) and justice attended the imbizo.

“We, as sport stakeholders, have failed learners and young people at school and out of school and we need a theory of change,” Kodwa told delegates, who included experts from abroad.

“We need to clearly spell out how school sport is supposed to work, why it will work and the conditions required for its successful implementation.”

Also in attendance were representatives of education trade unions. “There will be no school sport without unions buying into it,” said deputy sport minister Nocawe Mafu.

“When the minister came in in March, from day one, one of the things he was speaking about was the issue of strengthening school sport,” she said.

“This indaba will [offer] pathways and explain what the country needs to do,” she added, pointing out that nations such as Australia, New Zealand and England were successful because of strong school systems.

“That’s where you start to identify people.”

South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee president Barry Hendricks said it took 14 years to produce an elite athlete from scratch, but his organisation wouldn’t be able to achieve that without a functional school system.

“That base is critical to forming a reservoir of talent and if we don’t create a structured school system we’re going to have a weak sport system.”

One problem facing school sport was a lack of facilities. 

“The most important thing for me is the accessibility of sports codes to children so they are spoilt for choice because we want to unearth talent in everything,” said Mafu.

Sifiso Ngobese, a director at the DBE, said a major challenge in rural schools was vast distances, which made leagues impossible.

A suggestion was introducing intra-school leagues, he added.

Ngobese also spoke about allowing schools to requisition sports equipment as they did stationery.

The picture he painted showed the importance of NGO assistance, through projects such as Dreamfields and the Kay Motsepe Schools Cup.

Speakers referred to the national sports indaba of 2011 which resulted in the ambitious national sport and recreation plan, though much of it has been gathering dust in recent years.

Kodwa and Hendricks said delegates needed to examine the plan and decide what had failed and what had been successful.