Pretoria - The Department of Sport and Recreation has earmarked R42.6 million for the School Sport Progamme, which Minister Fikile Mbalula says is a priority area for delivery this financial year.
Tabling his department's Budget Vote in Parliament on Friday, Mbalula said the School Sport budget within his department had increased from R27.3 million in the previous year to R42.6 million.
"We have as government invested enormous resources in our School Sport Programme and we are now finalising our engagement with the National Distribution Agency on Sport and Recreation to allocate R200 million towards our School Sport Programme," he said.
Mbalula said the department would continue to support schools in the delivery of sport programmes and empower educators in code specific coaching, technical officiating, team management and sport administration, with the focus being on the 16 priority sporting codes.
The Sport Support Services Programme also received a significant increase of over R25 million -up from R162 million to R187.3 million - mainly to support federations in sport development projects.
The budget of the International Liaison Directorate, on the other hand, sees a decrease of R26.6 million mainly due to the budget adjustment in 2011/12 for value added tax refunds on 2010 FIFA World Cup tickets.
Compensation of employees is slightly above the inflation increase due mainly to additional staff in school sport component. The budget increased from R79.9 million in 2011/12 to R91.9 million in 2012/13.
For the 2012/13 financial year, the department allocated R470 million towards the Mass Participation Programme (MPP) conditional grant, which has been allocated as follows: R211 million is allocated to the School Sport Programme, which makes 45 percent of the grant; Club Development and Community Hubs receive R106 million respectively, which makes 23 percent each.
The remaining budget is allocated for compensation of employees in provinces working on the MPP projects and district academies of sport.
"The aim is to ensure that all learners in South Africa are provided access to an organised and structured system of sport that offers opportunity for mass participation, talent support and high performance.
"The ultimate goal in increasing access to school sport [is to] increase the athlete base in the country, thus improving the talent pool and improving South Africa's performance internationally," said Mbalula.
According to the minister, this is one of the ways in which government will deal with the problem of transformation.
He said to achieve this, the starting point was with learners in schools. The South African Schools Act (SASA) guarantees all learners' access to physical education and sport programmes.
The Sport Department signed a memorandum of understand for the delivery of physical education and sport programmes in all schools of our country with the Department of Basic Education.
The roll-out plan of the School Sport Programme is underpinned by three critical components -physical education, top school leagues and Youth Olympics.
Mbalula said they had already completed the process of registration of schools who wish to participate in the School Sport Programmes, especially in the national School Sport Leagues, which will culminate in the national Top Schools final championship in December.
"Thus far we have managed to register 11 000 out of 27 000 schools for participation in the 2012 School Sport Leagues and Competitions," he said.
