Lack of a clear policy on scouting and nurturing of talents at an early stage has been identified as the key barrier that has led to sloppy growth of sports as a professional career in Rwanda, lawmakers have said.

In a recent tour across the country, members of the senatorial Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Human Rights and Petitions discovered "lack of serious commitment to sports” in most schools that they say might be the cause of dismal performance by Rwandan athletes at professional level.

An outstanding case was in Nyabihu District, where Senators visited a school that has about 3,000 children, but without any sports facility.

In an interview with The New Times, on Friday, Senator Gallican Niyongana, the chairperson of the committee, said Government needs to put up more concrete policy framework through which talents can be promoted as early as nursery or primary school and nurture those talents for the country to produce more professional athletes.

"If we can’t put up mechanisms in place to help us develop, scout, nurture sports at a young age, we will not be able to have professional sports personalities in any discipline,” said Niyongana.

The senatorial committee, last week, put to task Minister Julienne Uwacu of Sports and Culture, and the State Minister for Primary and Secondary Education, Olivier Rwamukwaya, to explain why sports sector is struggling, as lawmakers seek to draft a report that would help in identifying possible remedies to salvage the sector.

The Amavubi embarrassment

Sen. Perrine Mukankusi noted that there should be a legal framework, and policies to streamline games and sports in schools, such that teachers take it as serious and understand the need to prioritise sports in schools if the country is to develop the sector.

"If we don’t identify and nurture talents, we might be faced with yet another challenge like that we saw of fielding athletes from other countries,” she said.

Rwanda’s football team was disappointingly disqualified from the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers over fielding Daddy Birori, a DR Congo native who had dual identity, back in August 2014.

Birori also played for DR Congo side AS Vita Club under a different name, Etekiama Agiti Tady, with a different age.

Lawmakers say such issues might not happen again if the Government invests in promoting games and sports in schools.

"If we want to professionalise sports, in Rwanda, we need to change the current situation and mindset on people, and ask schools to hire qualified sports teachers,” said Jean Damascene Ntawukuliryayo.

Ntawukuliryaro expressed disappointment after finding out that the football field for the University of Rwanda-Huye Campus had been turned into a drivers’ training ground.

"It was so comical how a football field was turned into a drivers’ training ground, this shows that some people do not understand the importance of sports. Sports is not about physical exercise but a healthy practice, too,” he said.

It is also understood that mass games and sports—in public primary and secondary schools—is allocated one hour per week.

However, senators challenged this, asking the Ministry of Education to allocate more time for games and sports in public schools, saying that, "there is need for enough time.

While appearing before senators, last week, Minister Rwamukwaya underlined a number of challenges hindering the success of sport in schools, among them including; inadequate financing, lack of enough space to put up sports fields, and lack of qualified trainers.

"As we continue to expend and build new classrooms, this has created shortage of land in schools’ premises to setup sports field. Needless to say, some schools are situated in hilly areas, making it hard to set up sports fields,” Rwamukwaya said.

The minister added that insufficient funds led to the closure of the sports academy programmes two years ago.

"We would identify children under the age of 15 and 17, bring them together and put them under intensive training in various sports disciplines. But due to insufficient funds, this programme had to stop two years ago,” said Rwamukwaya.

He said, however, that in collaboration with the Sports and Culture ministry, they have developed a legal framework—now awaiting Cabinet approval—that will close the existing gaps identified in sports development in schools.

On the issues relating to insufficient budget; however, lawmakers asked the Government to balance the priorities, saying as there is focus on promoting science, there is a need to focus on sports, too.

Sen. Narcisse Musabeyezu said promoting sports might not necessarily mean the construction of sports fields alone.

"Our country is hilly which can be an advantage for marathoners. It is a matter of thinking of how we can take advantage of what we have to professionalise sports,” Musabeyezu said.

In the new school curricula, Rwamukwaya said, the Government has underlined games and sports as a separate lesson, asking schools to hire qualified physical education and sports teachers to promote and nurture sports in young people.

Although there are several sporting activities and competitions designed for each education level in the country, also leading the local school teams to compete on national and regional levels, Rwamukwaya acknowledges that school directors should put more efforts in such programmes to expose the talents of the youth.

Call for private investors

Sports and Culture minister Julienne Uwacu, on the other hands, said the long-term solution to the issues relating to the promoting of sports can only be the private investment into sports academies.

"Sometimes, the few existing sporting academies want to rely on government for funding. That is not the way things work,” she said.

"The Government will do what it can, in terms of building possible infrastructure, but we also think it’s high time private investors looked into such opportunities for the professionalisation of sports in the country.”

Uwacu reiterated that schools should ensure that they build sports facilities and avail a range of sporting activities to students to allow talent development.

Rwamukwaya said the Government seeks to initiate sports centres of excellence to nurture talents.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw