R400m for schools sport development 2014-07-18 DEPARTMENT of Sport and Recreation will again put more emphasis on sport development at learning institutions across the country. In his 2014/15 budget vote speech in parliament yesterday, Minister Fikile Mbalula said they intended putting aside R400-million for schools sport development. Mbalula said they anticipated more than 15 000 pupils to compete at this years national School Sport Championships as part of their sport development at 24 000 schools in the country. When we started with this programme in 2012, there were only 5137 participants at the national School Sport Championships in Tshwane across eight codes, and last year there were 11 780 participants across 11 codes, Mbalula said. This programme is growing on an annual basis. At this years championships, we will further include new codes like swimming and goalball, and two new codes in indigenous games kho kho and kgati. He said it was their commitment to ensure that all schools in the country and all children should be afforded the opportunity to at least play one code of sport during their schooling days. The 2012 and 2013 championships produced deserving learners who have been placed in specialist schools. These learners are fully funded to ensure that they receive quality education while developing as athletes in various codes. Mbalula also revealed that they were toying with the idea of introducing a university sports cup and supporting leagues following on the success of the schools sport league. The department has started a process of mobilising private partnerships and funding to increase the participation base for schools sport. At the moment, the amount allocated is R32.2-million at national level and R210-million, which is 40% of the conditional grant. But as I reflected, this amount is too little to meet the objectives that we have set ourselves in schools sport, he said. The department will also build outdoor gyms in rural areas as part of rural development. Expenditure for infrastructure support for the year has been allocated R10.4-million. The department has started with plans to establish volleyball and hockey premier leagues following the successes of the Netball Premier League and the National Basketball League. On transformation, Mbalula said: We have entered the second phase of the transformation process after a successful pilot ...
Posted on: Fri, 18 Jul 2014 09:16:32 +0000
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