USSSA Quarterly Press Conference Held
Uganda Secondary Schools Sports Association addressed the press on their activities and achievements of 2024 so far and the upcoming events and the future plans of the association.
The press conference held at USSSA Offices, GNS Plaza today morning and was addressed by the Justus Mugisha, USSSA President and Reverend Canon Dr. Duncans Mugumya, the Commissioner Physical Education and Sports. Madam Grace Abalo, Senior Education Officer (MoES), Christopher Mugisha, CEO USSSA and Patrick Alfred Okanya, President Emeritus USSSA were also in attendance.
In his address the President outlined the key focus areas namely capacity building, new sports disciplines, infrastructure, ISF participation and the USSSA online registration.
Capacity Building
“Capacity Building remains our main focus because we believe for the future to be bright we need to prepare the referees and coaches very well all the way from the grassroots. So far we have trained 4512 participants, 2291 male and 2221 females in different parts of the country”. Justus Mugisha , USSSA President.
New Sports Disciplines
“We have brought new games on board like Scrabble, Chess and Ludo. We have improved the number of participants in beach soccer, beach volleyball, lacrosse, dance sport and Woodball. We are also looking forward to introducing new sports disciplines but we will have to consult the ministry”. Justus Mugisha, USSSA President.
Infrastructure
“Schools have established sports facilities, i want to commend Amus College and Bukedea Comprehensive School for constructing facilities purposely for East African games. Other schools that have set up sports facilities include Teso College Aloet, Ndejje SSS and Standard High School, Ndejje Campus.” Justus Mugisha, USSSA President.
ISF Championships Participation
Uganda has participated in all ISF World Schools Championships, World Schools Volleyball Championship in Belgrade-Serbia, World Schools Football Championship Darlian- China, World Schools Basketball Championship Macao- China, World Schools Cross Country Championship Nairobi- Kenya and other teams are heading to Bahrein for the ISF Gymnasiade Championship.
USSSA and UPSSA Partnership
“This year we have been able to support Uganda Primary School Sports Association in various fields. For example, Capacity Building, online registration, event management, expansion of Primary games at FEASSA and governance (Organizing elections earlier this year)” Justus Mugisha , USSSA President.
Upcoming Events
The USSSA general assembly will take place soon with dates to be confirmed, the USSSA Capacity Building and the USSSA Excellency also coming up
Online Registration and Transfers
The online registration opens on Monday 16th September while the transfers will begin on 1st January and close on 29th February 2024.
In addition, the president emphasized that a player can leave a school freely if he/she is not on bursary but one must get a release from the school head teacher if the student is on bursary.
The Commissioner Physical Education and Sports, Ministry of Education and Sports Rev. Can. Duncans Mugumya was the chief guest and while speaking about the vice of age cheating in school sports appreciated efforts by USSSA in joining hands with the Primary Schools Sports Associations as a way of tracking these athletes from grass roots.
“Thank you USSSA for partnering with your colleagues in UPSSA. Entering the participants on a system is very good because this means they will be tracked all the way from primary and this will fix several loopholes that can be used to change dates of birth when they join secondary schools. I met a Senior three student who told me his age and i was surprised. therefore “I would like to challenge USSSA. If you have age categories of under 12 in primary, under -14 and under 16, it means the age category of under 20 should have a lower boundary. A boy of 19 should not be kicking a boy of 12!”