11 Mar 2013

Botswana Tertiary Students Sports Association (BOTESSA) chairperson has expressed concern over the declining number of women in sporting activities at technical colleges.

Lewis Ramathaka said in an interview at BOTESSA Bracket C competitions in Masunga on Saturday that although as a bracket they had always experienced the problem, it was more pronounced this year.

Ramathaka explained that this could be attributed mostly to the fact that more men enrolled with technical colleges each year.

He also noted that in comparison with the past years, this year’s competition had seen the poorest turn-out of athletes in general, stating that of the five institutions that were represented at the competitions, only Selebi Phikwe had brought a sizeable number of athletes.

The problem, he indicated, was worsened by the fact that three institutions: Gaborone Technical College, Botswana College of Engineering and Technology (formerly known as Automotive Trades Technical College) and Maun Wildlife Training Institute had failed to turn up for the event due to various reasons.

Ramathaka said the poor turn-out of athletes at the competition was likely to hamper the bracket’s efforts to successfully defend their position at the national championships scheduled for Gaborone at a date yet to be announced.

On a good note, he said the performance of athletes had improved slightly as many of those who competed managed to break some of the records that had been set over the past years.

He thus appealed to all colleges to continue taking sports seriously to ensure continuous growth as well as improvement of athletes’ performance.

Giving an overview of the competition, he explained that technical colleges and other institutions of their level had been grouped together to form BOTESSA and that to facilitate the smooth-running of the competition, the institutions had been divided into three groups, those being Bracket A, B and C.

He explained further that the competition began with institutions within the same bracket competing against each other before moving to the finals where they competed against the other two brackets.

The best athletes selected at the nationals, he said, then proceeded to represent the country at the Confederation of Universities and Colleges of Southern Africa (CUCSA) competitions, which were held every two years.

At the end of the weekend competition, Selebi Phikwe Technical College emerged top with 281 points followed by Palapye Technical College with 201 points. Francistown College of Technical and Vocational Education got position three with 183 points while Maun Technical College and Jwaneng Technical College took positions four and five with 102 and 60 points respectively. ENDS