There has been no sports at schools for nearly five years despite recent efforts to resume activities. Meetings have been held between the ministry and two teachers unions, the Botswana Sectors of Educators Trade Union (BOSETU) and the Botswana Teachers Union (BTU) but there has been no breakthrough. Teachers are demanding remuneration for their involvement in sport activities.
This week, BOSETU pointed an accusing finger at Kemoeng as the man standing in the way of the return of sport at schools. But speaking exclusively to MmegiSport, Kemoeng said he has never stood in the way of resumption of sport activities in schools. “I am not the stumbling block for the return of sports like the unions say.
The unions and teachers are the ones that are stumbling blocks because all they want is money and not school sports,” Kemoeng said. “The unions have sent us a proposal and in their proposal, the cheapest amount the unions wanted was P200 million and the maximum asking price from them was P800 million, which makes it more than what sport across all codes get,” he said. Kemoeng said when the proposal from Unions was sent, negotiations were put on halt as it was outside his mandate as the permanent secretary. He said as the ministry, they could only offer teachers allowances according to the Incentives Policy.
“This issue presented itself to be an issue between the employer and the employee. If the unions want such kind of money, they should negotiate with the Directorate of Public Service Management (DPSM) and the Ministry of Education and Skills Development (MESD) as they are their employers,” Kemoeng said. “Parliament has only passed the incentive policy and this is the only policy that we can use to negotiate with the unions and remunerate them on voluntary basis. So they don’t want the volunteer incentive and now I cannot negotiate with them,” Kemoeng said.
He said the ministry is prepared to remunerate teachers but only through the incentive policy. Kemoeng indicated the ministry is working behind closed doors to bring sports back as part of development. “The ministry has designed a development programme, which will be similar to Re Ba Bona Ha, which we used to have.
We have appointed regional coordinators who will appoint coaches across the country in different centres,” he said. Re Ba Bona Ha is a development programme under the Botswana National Sport Commission, which gained traction under Kemoeng's watch during his time as the chief executive officer at the sports body. Kemoeng said the return of school sports is imminent with the MESD deciding to go a different route to see sports return. “The MESD are returning the sports as part of the curriculum, taking back the sports within working hours so that there will be no overtime and we will capacitate them whichever way we can,” Kemoeng said.
