EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM ON THE SCHOOLS MASS
PARTICIPATION PROGRAMME
During
March 2005, Minister Stofile witnessed learners at a school in a rural area,
practicing javelin with a broomstick and shot put with a brick. In a meeting
with the Minister held in June 2005 to determine the Minister’s priorities for
the next financial year (MTEF) he challenged the department to develop a
programme that will address the problem of lack of resources for sport in the
poorest of poor schools. This has been the background to SRSA developing a
proposal to find resources to start sport development programmes in these
schools that will lead to regular participation of learners on a mass basis
with the view to them becoming part of the mainstream national school sport
programmes. This is supportive of the purpose of the framework for
collaboration on school sport signed between the Minister of Sport and
Recreation and the Minister of Education on 17 March 2005.
SRSA has
received R70.0m from the National Treasury to deliver this project. R50.0m of
these funds have been allocated to provinces as a conditional grant through the
Division of Revenue Act. The equitable share formula was used as a basis for
the allocation to the provinces. Attached is a breakdown of allocations over
the MTEF period. SRSA has retained R20.0m for the management of the programme
as well as for all the national training and marketing of the project.
It is
envisaged that the project will be delivered to schools in clusters where each
cluster will consist of Primary and Secondary Schools within a limited radius –
preferably within walking distance. The programme will focus on 6 – 8 codes of
sport per school, with each code catering for 2 or 3 age groups.
The
project consists of the following 3 phases:
This will
include training of educators and volunteers as coaches, referees, judges and
technical officials
This
entails essential equipment that is necessary for the programme to succeed.
The success
of the programme will be measured be the number of times inter- house and
inter-school fixtures take place on a frequent (preferably weekly) and
sustainable basis.
Delivery
of the project will be a collaborative effort between national (SRSA & DoE)
and provincial (PDSR & PDoE) and the schools concerned. We will involve the
national and provincial federations very closely in the delivery of the
project, especially in phase 1.
In line
with the requirements of DORA, a national blueprint has been developed for the
programme. As prescribed by the DORA, provincial departments have also
developed provincial business plans (blue prints) for the programme.
Provinces
were requested to work closely with the provincial departments of education to
identify clusters and schools for inclusion in the programme. Fifty-six (56)
clusters and 798 schools have been identified through this process.
As this is
described as a mass participation programme the key performance areas are the
number of schools, number of educators and volunteers and the number of learners
participation in the programme. There, however has to be a balance between
quantity and quality because if the schools are not going to be adequately
resourced the sustainability of the programme will be compromised.
Sustainability must also be seen as a key performance area of the project.
The UK,
through UK Sport and the British Council have over the past few years shown a
lot of interest in working with South Africa in developmental sports programmes
in schools. Future cooperation with UK sport will be under the ambit of a
government-to-government agreement signed between the two parties. The UK has
offered to link schools in the programme with schools or sports colleges in the
UK. The main focus of the linkage would be on training and exchange information
and ideas. As an introduction, the UK has identified 26 Sports Colleges to be
linked to 26 “lead schools” in 26 of the identified clusters in the programme.
Principles and sports teachers of these schools will pay reciprocal visits to
each others schools where training would be conducted. The British Council will
also assist in the training of learners in the FET phase as sports
leaders.
We have
now met all our statutory requirements in terms of the Division of Revenue Act
(DORA) to commence with the programme. To this end it is imperative that our
two departments and our provincial counterparts move forward jointly to deliver
the programme. Whilst delivery will take place through the provinces the
national departments will meet on a monthly basis with the provinces to receive
reports and to take the project further.