Integrated School Sports Plan: briefing by Departments of Sport and Recreation & Basic Education

Meeting Summary

The Portfolio Committee on Sport and Recreation & Portfolio Committee on Basic met jointly to discuss the Integrated School Sports Plan. The joint presentation was a follow-up from an earlier presentation and the comments and recommendations made in the previous meetings had been taken into consideration. The School Sports Programme would be launched on 5 November 2011 at the University of Johannesburg. The Memorandum of Understanding had not yet been signed, but both Ministers and would sign it as part of the launch. The launch was an opportunity to showcase the state of readiness to roll out the entire school sport processes.

The Department of Basic Education would be responsible for the finalisation of school sport policy, establishing school sport committees and support these committees at all levels to deliver school sport leagues. The Department of Sport would finalise the guidelines for agencies supporting the delivery of school sport, together with the provincial governments would identify talent and further development through the academy systems. In terms of joint responsibilities, both Departments would develop the training materials for educators and would facilitate capacity building programmes for educators and develop a concept document on infrastructure and equipment that addressed issues of redress, sharing of facilities and access.

With regards to the school sports leagues, the advocacy started in January in four sporting codes an almost 3 000 schools had already registered and the provinces were preparing for cluster tournaments. The National launch of the leagues and distribution of donated sports material gave way to the political mandate of developing an integrated school sports plan. The key focus for the school sports league was the provision of a progressive, competitive structure and a mechanism for identifying talent, it was important to retain the appropriate balance between play, practice and competition for children and youth.

To deliver on its mandate, the Department of Sport and Recreation would roll out the new South African coaching framework as a pilot targeting educators from 2011 to 2014. This process would be coordinated by the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee through a service level agreement with the Department of Sport and Recreation.

Committee Member raised questions as to the costing of the School Sports Plan and whether there were contributions and sponsorship from the private sector. Members asked the breakdown of the 3 000 participant schools and the ability of the Departments to provide oversight. Did the plan call for the increased participation of children with disabilities and women? Members raised questions about funding for sporting facilities in rural areas.

The Portfolio Committee on Sport and Recreation & Portfolio Committee on Basic met jointly to discuss the Integrated School Sports Plan.

Co-Chairperson Malgas stated that the joint meeting agenda originated as a follow-up from the Minister of Basic Education signing a Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of Sport and Recreation (SRSA). It was important for both Committees to meet in order to know the status of school sport in South Africa because the Department of Sport & Recreation was the custodian of sport and Basic Education as the custodian of the learners and educators. Co-Chairperson Malgas invited Mr Gert Oosthuizen, Deputy Minister of Sport and Recreation to address the Committee.

Deputy Minister Oosthuizen introduced the new Director General for the Department of Sport and Recreation, Mr Alec Moemi who assumed duty on the morning of 1 November 2011.

The Deputy Minister then left the meeting as he had other engagements to attend.

Director General Alec Moemi stated that the joint presentation was a follow-up from an earlier presentation and the comments and recommendations made in the previous meetings had been taken into consideration. The School Sports Programme would be launched on 5 November at the University of Johannesburg. The consultative process had been successful as it involved key stakeholders, teachers unions, school governing bodies, sporting federations, school sport code Committees and Provincial Departments. The Memorandum of Understanding had not yet been signed, but both Ministers and would sign it as part of the launch. The launch was an opportunity to showcase the state of readiness to roll out the entire school sport processes.

Ms Sumayya Khan, Chief Operating Officer for the Department of Sport and Recreation stated that on 22 June 2011, the Ministers of Basic Education and Sport met to discuss school sport and began to develop an action plan to realise the objective of the planning framework. An interdepartmental task team met on 23 June to consolidate the responsibilities of each Department. There were specific responsibilities assigned to each Department. The Department of Basic Education would be responsible for the finalisation of school sport policy, establishing school sport committees and support these committees at all levels to deliver school sport leagues. The Department of Sport would finalise the guidelines for agencies supporting the delivery of school sport, together with the provincial governments would identify talent and further development through the academy systems, assist the National federations in hosting National junior championship, develop a concept for sports-focused school, develop a five-year completive school sports plan, develop a five-year capacity development and training programme for educators and develop a school-sports calendar. In terms of joint responsibilities, both Departments would develop the training materials for educators and would facilitate capacity building programmes for educators and develop a concept document on infrastructure and equipment that addressed issues of redress, sharing of facilities and access.

A task team was established to develop guidelines for the establishment of code committees, the school sports code five-year plan, the draft one-year calendar and the strengthening of school sports leagues and partnerships. With regards to the school sports leagues, the advocacy started in January in four sporting codes an almost 3 000 schools had already registered and the provinces were preparing for cluster tournaments. The National launch of the leagues and distribution of donated sports material gave way to the political mandate of developing an integrated school sports plan.

The key focus for the school sports league was the provision of a progressive, competitive structure and a mechanism for identifying talent. It was important to retain the appropriate balance between play, practice and competition for children and youth. This needed to be supported by suitably skilled coaches that had the ability to guide the improvement of children in line with their needs and stage of development.
To deliver on its mandate, the Department of Sport and Recreation would roll out the new South African coaching framework as a pilot targeting educators from 2011 to 2014. This process would be coordinated by the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) through a service level agreement with SRSA. A massive media campaign would be launched for the training of educators to popularise the programme amongst the public to invite applications and inputs from the public.    

Regarding timelines, training for masters at a National level would take place between January and July 2012 that focused 48 educators and volunteers from the schools and communities. The seniors training would take place at a Provincial level between April and December 2012, the district trainers in all 53 districts would take place between October 2012 and March 2013. Assistance coaches for level-one at district levels would be trained between February 2013 and February 2014, level-two coaches would be trained between February 2013 and December 2014. This included 21 000 coaches level-two in 16 codes of sport. (See attached presentation for more details)

Co-Chairperson Dikgacwi opened the floor to discussion

Discussion
Mr A Mpontshane (IFP) stated that the intentions of the Integrated School Sports Plan were very good but the success of the plan depended on financial resources. Would it be possible to cost this programme and see whether the objective could be met?

Ms F Mushwana (ANC) asked whether the facilities were available to get this plan off the ground. She stated that the breakdown of 3 000 participant schools was misleading. Regarding the rollout of the training of educators what was the status as of November 2011?  On the school support rollout, how would the Departments be able to provide oversight to ensure that they were taking the programme seriously?

Mr D Smiles (DA) reiterated the question about the budget for the plan and asked about contributions and sponsorship from the private sector.

Ms M Dube (ANC) asked about the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and whether it was difficult to work without timeframes. Could the Committee request a list of the districts where the plan was to be rolled out?

Mr G Mackenzie (COPE) stated that the plan was a good start. What role could academies play? Model-C and private schools had a reputation for excellence in sports, but they only represented a tiny percentage of the school going children in the country, were the coaches and educators from these schools being consulted? How would Love Life help? What progress had been made on sharing facilities? On the consultation process what was the role of teachers unions and were they in support of the Integrated Sports Plan? Which 4 codes had school sports been consulted in.

Mr S Makhubele (ANC) stated that in the report, the MOU spelled out that SRSA would be the lead department on the programme and a task team would conclude the work but SRSA needed to assert its authority.

Ms A Mashishi (ANC) asked about how the Love Life programme was to provide volunteers. Given that sports’ coaching was male dominated, what provisions have been made to include females and people with disabilities.

Mr D Lee (DA) re-iterated the question posed by Ms Mashishi on Love Life and stated that for the school sport plan to be successful, teachers needed to be involved.

Mr C Moni asked whether the sports calendar was inclusive of disabled children. What specific rural areas were part of the plan? He stated that the rural areas were being left behind. Were all codes inclusive of women’s participation?

Co-Chairperson Malgas asked when physical education teachers would be introduced into schools. 3 000 schools were registered for the plan, but there were 27 000 schools across the country. How could the plan get the other schools involved?

Director General Alec Moemi replied that municipalities played a critical role in the provision of facilities. The Department was in the process of revisiting the audit of facilities across municipalities. The key challenge, which municipalities needed to overcome, was the issue of how the sports facilities would be shared. Greater collaboration would need to take place amongst schools. Accessibility remained a challenge for township schools.

Regarding provision of facilities in rural schools there had been a pilot rollout of multi-purpose sports courts. In the provision of facilities municipalities did not necessarily have common guidelines. Smaller communities were required to provide on a smaller scale that was commensurate with population size. This was remained a challenge for South Africa because it was a developing country.
.
On the issue of financial resources, the key issue was that the Department was rolling out the plan on an incremental basis. The responsibilities had been split between the two Departments for the current financial year. SRSA provided a budget of its responsibilities for the rollout in the current Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) cycle. This was an incremental path which was why the Department chose to begin with 3 000 schools. The financial and human resource capacity did not exist to take up the project on a massive scale and roll out the project initially to all 27 000 school. The programme provided us with a basis to kick-start the process. Even with the existing academies, volunteers, federations and coaching expertise the capacity was still not enough go to a large scale, as there were many township and rural schools where sports was not being played.

On the inclusion of disabled athletes and participation of women, the plan encouraged federation through incentives to get disabled learners involved.

The Love Life programme had experience in working with school children and brought essential lessons that both Departments could learn, particularly about the failures that may have happened with the Love Life games and how these failures would not be repeated. Love Life needed to be judged on moving from a scale of zero because prior to the Love Life games there were no major school games running. In provinces such as the Free State, Love Life had been contracted to do the Oliver Tambo games and the Department had been quite happy with the rollout of those games.

On the involvement of teachers, it was important to develop professional coaches who were also teachers.

Mr Temba Kojana, Acting Deputy Director General, Basic Education stated that the MOU dealt with the roles and responsibilities; however there was no confusion about the roles and responsibility of both departments. On the role of the private sector, McDonalds and Adidas had contributed immensely. UNICEF and Total had supported the sponsorship of the school sports league. Finally, he added that the Departments were looking into the promotion of indigenous games.

Ms Rohini Naidoo, Director: School Sport, SRSA clarified the process of rolling out the coach training programmes. The programme was targeted towards educators. The South African Coaching framework was the instrument to coordinate all coaches in the country the key thing was the accreditation process. On the issue of Love Life, the role in the coaching framework was not to deliver coaching but to put together a module for life skills.

Ms Nozipho Xulu Director; Safety, Enrichment and Sport in Education at Department of Basic Education stated that regarding the 300 registered schools the Department of Basic Education could provide the per province breakdown, taking into consideration that the first year of implementation was a pilot that did not reflect the actual number of schools in the country.

Co-Chairperson Dikgacwi opened the floor for follow up questions

Mr Lee stated that it was a sin to have R8 billion in available rollover funds from the lotto going unused.

Ms Mushwana called for the need for swimming pools in all South African schools, in order to “put a black face” on swimming. She stated that the launching of the plan could be done anywhere in the country and not just in Gauteng. She also applauded the inclusion of Physical Education as a stand-alone programme in school curriculums.

Ms Gina (ANC) requested the specific details on multi-purpose courts. She further expressed concern that it was not practical to build facilities for multi-purpose sport codes in the rural communities.

Ms C Dudley (ACDP) asked for clarity on the process of approving the life skills programme and how transparent would it be. Was the training for teacher voluntary? Would volunteers be remunerated?

Mr J Van De Linde (DA) asked why the Integrated Sports Plan focused mainly on the four major codes (Rugby, Soccer, Cricket and Netball), while training would be for 16 codes? The Committee needed to be sure that every code reported to what they were doing to develop youth sport each year.

Ms Dube asked about facilities that had been sold to certain sporting codes, whereby those codes would make the school pay when they wanted to use those facilities.

Mr N Kganyago (UDM) stated that indigenous games that were prohibited needed to be included as part of the Integrated Sports Plan.

Co-Chairperson Dikgacwi asked if there were some rural schools counted in the 3 000 identified schools. Which were the 16 federations that were identified? How was the School Sports Plan aligned to the National Sports Plan? Where did the Departments of Public Works and Agriculture fit into this plan, as they were concerned with infrastructure and nutrition?

Director General Alec Moemi responded that the Minister was meeting with the Department of Trade and Industry to look into the issue of lottery funds. Sometimes funds were channelled to other programmes and this issue was being raised.

On the swimming pool issues, it was impossible to build an Olympic size swimming pool in all schools, but the Department had to invest on an incremental basis.

The decision to the launch the Sports Plan in Gauteng was a political decision that was made by the two Ministers. The use of multi-purpose community courts was a viable option, because a single court could be used for five different codes. The decision was taken to focus on the four codes major codes and start where South Africa was strongest and National sport would grow from there. South Africa welcomed this ‘Argentinean model’ because school sports incrementally included all sporting codes.

The privatisation of facilities was a “painful thing” as municipalities were faced with hard choices. A great premium was placed on social infrastructure, housing, bulk infrastructure and roads this was a big challenge as sporting facilities were seen more as a luxury than a necessity.

The indigenous sporting codes would be supported, and there was a great opportunity with the indigenous games to have competitions that were unique to South Africa.

On the process of approving the life skills programme, the internal monitoring and evaluation process was key in ensuring that targets were met.

Nozipho Xulu Director; Safety, Enrichment and Sport in Education at Department of Basic Education agreed with focus on training for rollout of sport in school.

Ms Naidoo replied that the issue of the life skills in terms of the coaching framework would be an accredited process. Within the coaching framework SRSA was looking at full time, part time and volunteer coaches. This needed to be mapped out as far as who received funding and where.

Co-Chairperson Malgas stated that it was important that the Committee knew the costing of the plan. The involvement of municipalities and their role was important to the success of the plan. When it came to disaggregated data, the 3 000 schools, the 21 200 coaches and the 319 teachers needed to be clearly broken down. The Integrated School Sports Plan required an integrated approach, which looked at health.

Co-Chairperson Malgas thanked the joint Committee and the Department for their participation and adjourned the meeting.