Uganda Secondary School Sports Association (USSSA) president Justus Mugisha believes their partnership with their primary schools counterparts “is a match made in heaven.”
Speaking at the closing ceremony and later dinner of the August 28 to September 5 National Primary School Ball games at Kakyeeka stadium, Mugisha said the move will ensure that “in a few years Uganda will be at the top of the world because all games start in school.”
You (Ministry of Education and Sports) asked us to cooperate with schools and also asked us to work with (sports) federations for maximum results and we are onto that,” Mugisha said addressing the Commissioner Physical Education and Sports in the Ministry of Education and Sports Rev. Canon Duncans Mugumya, who was the chief guest on the day.
“We took 14 years to win the FEASSSA Games. Now for the third year running, we are winning and with a big margin.But what is important is not that we are beating Kenya but that we are contributing immensely to sports development in the region”.
However, despite all this, we still came to a conclusion that starting sports at secondary school level is too late. So we tried to put up U-16 tournaments but nothing was changing.
That is why we have returned to collaborate with the primary schools,” Mugisha said at the games which were broadcast on the USSSA YouTube channel and where the body held capacity building training for the teachers. Mugisha also promised the body has the money to push this to district level unlike the case in Mbarara where each district was allowed up to two participants.
Incentivizing primary schools
Unlike USSSA, which brings the winning school teams to the nationals, the primary school association brings district select teams to the national games. Although this theoretically brings the very best talents, it ends up demotivating the schools, which put in so much to develop these talents. At the national level, the sporting primary schools get no mileage out of their investment. Secondly, the teams have to camp before the games at national, which takes the pupils out of their schools for prolonged periods of time, hence missing out on academics
Mugisha also added that there are challenges like financing that need to be addressed.
“We can work together to ensure games in schools can be financed by government. In Kigali, we had many MPs and they were interested in having this discussion.”
Mugisha also shared that there should be participation incentives for the primary schools as the ISF (World School Federation) Games are not for only secondary school going students.
Uganda will need more games to help it win at international level. The FEASSSA games where some of these teams could have gotten more competition ended on the same day these primary school games were starting. Uganda, therefore, missed an opportunity to win both the primary and secondary categories at the just concluded FEASSSA Games.
School games competitions are for different age categories; U-12, U-14, and U-16.
Age cheating
However, it was observed that the age categorization is not dependent on the date of birth but rather a unit reached according to one height and weight.
“Tall kids and those who are well fed end up being disadvantaged by the system. Unfortunately, it’s the tall athletes that are on demand in most, if not all, sports disciplines.
“Unlike at secondary, where players are registered online and verified prior to the championship, in the primary games, players are weighted, categorized, and registered on arrival. The organizers have no knowledge about the number in the different categories prior to this process. As such, draws and fixtures delay for as many as two days. The registration forms do not have a field for the school attended by pupils nor the pupils’ EMIS number. It’s therefore difficult to verify whether the athletes go to school. It is highly suspected that a good number of athletes in the U-16 category are actually secondary school students,” added Mugisha, who has the experience as a director at Standard High School – Zzana, first vice president fufa, president of USSSA, president of FEASSSA for 20 years, and president technical commission for football ISF.
Feeding issues
Mugisha also noted that “unlike USSSA games, where we have centralized feeding, at primary games, each district fends for itself. The children are at the mercy of the officials who travel with the team. This also creates classes as some children are fed on rice and chicken, while others take porridge for meals. No wonder some teams could not honor all their fixtures after running out of upkeep funds.”
Free-up games
The president also advised that the students be given more playing time instead of putting them under strict competition rules.
“Do not eliminate teams at preliminaries. Have them play classification games so that each team plays the same number of games. Kids need to play as many games as possible,” Mugisha said.
For this, he was backed by Mugumya who added that “This (primary schools) championship is not intended for gold, silver or bronze medals but to identify talent and get an opportunity to nurture it for a good future.”