11 Feb 2024

 Minister of Education and Skills Development, Dr Douglas Letsholathebe says during the 2018/19 financial year the then Ministry of Basic Education failed to raise sufficient funds to pay for the excessive overtime and logistical costs of hosting inter-school sports.

He said the situation manifested itself over the years as more sport codes were introduced including boys and girls football, boys and girls netball and that various age categories were catered for such as U-16 boys and girls.

He noted that it resulted in growth in the number of athletes and teacher coaches travelling and participating in sports.

He said the cost of overtime for all activities was in excess of P50 million against a recurrent budget of just P2 million. He added that the ministry engaged the Ministry of Youth, Gender, Sport and Culture Development and that a multi-sectoral task team was established to provide guidance on the way forward.

“The task team report was completed and handed over in February 2021 and recommended that the aspect of sports development be passed to the rightful ministry of sports and leave school sports with education. Sports in schools is included with all co-curricular activities such as science clubs, drama club, Scripture Union, chess club and traditional dance to mention a few,” he said

Dr Letsholathebe said with the arrival of COVID-19 all co-curricular and sports activities were suspended, but that his ministry had long lifted the suspension.

“My ministry has developed guidelines for the conduct of co-curricular activities in schools. Sporting activities can be conducted between 730am and  430pm daily,” he said.

He added that schools were free to start the activities, noting that some had already been held with regard to the debate club and drama club. As for sports development, he said competitive sports had been handed over to the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development who were working with Botswana National Sports Commission to initiate a national development programme.

Ngami MP, Mr Caterpillar Hikuama had  wanted to know what led to the paralysis of sports in government schools and to the general development of learners and their academic performance. Ends