The Democratic Alliance in the Northern Cape calls for greater collaboration and cooperation between different stakeholders, from parents to school sport coordinators, to salvage the school athletics season.
We wrote to the Member of the Executive Council for Sport, Arts & Culture, Mangaliso Matika, to request that his department takes the necessary measures to assist school communities with track and field events in the absence of events arranged by the Northern Cape School Athletics Board. The decision by the board, which stems from the ongoing industrial action between the Northern Cape Department of Education and the educators it failed to pay, jeopardises the participation of provincial athletes in national and international competitions.
We also urge parents and family members to volunteer their time and assist schools to continue with athletics programmes in the absence of striking union members. School sport is too valuable to become a victim of departmental mismanagement. And yet this is the reality that has now come to pass.
It cannot be that our learners are being sanctioned from school sports due to the financial negligence of a provincial government that cannot manage its finances properly.