Right after the sober history lesson, we were able to meet and have a discussion with the director of Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA). Her job basically is to build sport and recreation in the country. Unfortunately because of Apartheid, there is a huge divide between the haves an the have nots. Prior to 1994, Education was racially based. All schools received money however most of the white, privileged schools also had the ability to hire more teachers which allowed the class sizes to remain smaller (approx. 15-20 per class). The poorer schools which were Indian and black didn’t have the means due to the government structure and ended up with class sizes near 75-80.
Once the democratic government was put in place, their first task for education was to cut the 19 different departments of education down to 1. In addition, they had to deal with the large learning gap between the schools due to the previous government rule. This meant that art, music and physical education were the first to be cut. Physical education only existed in the white schools prior to Apartheid ending so those schools still have physical education. There are approximately 29,000 schools in the country yet only 3,000 have physical educators on their staffs.
With the change in government and the creation of the SRSA, physical education has been mandated into the schools. The biggest problem now is that because of Apartheid, the disparity between schools is so large that it’s difficult to add this discipline when their is such a large learning gap in what they call “the examinable” subjects. In the schools that do not have qualified physical educators; teachers from other disciplines had to fill in to teach the P.E. curriculum. This put a large burden on an already overburdened system.
The SRSC’s mandate is to increase participation by enabling and creating access across all age levels. The schools are just one area that they focus on. The SRSC oversees all sport federations. The federations are equivalent to USA Basketball and USA Track and Field which are part of the USOC. The federations are required to develop their sports from the grass roots level all the way up to elite level teams. The problem arising is that the federations only want to focus on the elite level teams and not spend time developing at the grass roots level (i.e. schools). The SRSA has stated that in order to receive federal money, each federation must show that they not only are developing their sport in the rural and impoverished areas but they also offer access to girls.
In February of 2011, each federation will be required to have members from the schools sit on their governing board so the development process doesn’t leave the schools out. South Africa focuses only on sport development and training in physical education. Life time wellness and fitness is taught in other areas of the curriculum. Their biggest challenge at this point is not only implementing physical education in all the schools but finding qualified instructors to teach it.
We visited a school today in one of the townships. The enrollment of the school was approximately 1800 students. The school employs 47 teachers through all grade levels. If you do the math, that equals 38-40 students per teacher. They haven’t been able to meet the mandate of physical education because they are so behind in other disciplines. Their physical education facilities include an open field about the size of our stadium football field and a multi-purpose court, approximately the size of 1 tennis court. Even if they were able to implement it, they would have a hard time due to lack of facilities.
On a positive note, the SRSA really has a good philosophy and a good plan to incorporate sport and recreation in this society. The only issue that really stands in the way is the disparity between the schools due to an unjust political system. It kind of mirrors some of the issues we face in the U.S. as well. With the way our schools are funded, some schools have a lot more than others.
Regarding sport, our governing bodies do very little with the schools. They focus on elite training only. School sport is developed via organizations like the IHSA and the NCAA, etc. Even then there are differences in protocol and rules of each sport. Interestingly enough, neither of those organizations truly have an interest in the society as a whole, just their member schools an their programs.
The picture you see is the physical education field of the school we visited today.
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