News / Education
Mliswa pushes for schools' inclusive sporting curriculum
04 Aug 2025 at 23:07hrs | Views
ZVIMBA - Vibrant sports enthusiast and former Norton Independent legislator, Temba Mliswa has called for an inclusive and enabling sporting curriculum environment amongst rural and urban schools in the education sector's quest to ensure non-discriminatory skills identification and development.
Speaking during his address at the Mashonaland West Rugby 7's tournament (festival), Mliswa claimed that there is need for genuinely embracing and equip requisite skills amongst learners through equitable quality training and deployment of trainers throughout rural and urban schools.
"We need responsible authorities to genuinely allocate sufficient budget budget for sporting curriculum where certain amount is set aside for training of trainers. With specific mention to rugby, training should make sure that everyone from university or college should be trained well until they are accorded level three (3) coaching certificate where upon deployment, they will be equitably impart requisite skills amongst learners regardless of geography," Mliswa said.
"Rugby is not expensive in terms of making sure it is embraced well by both rural and urban schools, but what is only needed is the will and exposure. The infrastructure and efforts channelled towards football or netball should be the same since they might be used interchangeably to accommodate other sporting disciplines," Mliswa added.
"So after training of trainers, we need the education ministry to ensure that they deploy trainers with level 3 coaching certificate even in rural schools. This would therefore enable all schools to be centres of rugby skills excellence where we tap and identify best from remotely located schools who will shine on international platforms while representing the country," he added.
"In Mashonaland West, we decided to take this game even to rural schools in our quest to prove that it (rugby) is not only for the elite as presumed by some, but to show that even rural learners are also capable and what is only needed is exposure. We therefore keep on churning out the best from primary, secondary and tertiary education until they can play for the national, regional and international teams," Mliswa said.
Meanwhile, Mashonaland West Provincial Education Director (PED), Mr Gabriel Muma concurs with Mliswa, announcing that as the ministry, they are embarking on various strategies to ensure there is no elitism in sports amongst all schools.
"We are inclusively creating structures to ensure that the same labour and required skills are deployed within the reach of all learners regardless of their geographical location. We are also doing educational campaign and outreach programmes in partnership with qualified, skilled and experienced coaches where we finally deploy them amongst rural schools as part of sporting curriculum for development," Muma added.
"The reason why we bring these educational stakeholders here including primary and secondary schools heads under one roof is to make sure that they embrace the requisite sporting skills initiative from grassroots right up to highest levels. These stakeholders would therefore launch the same in their various schools and set-ups," Muma added.
"We will make follow up on the development, inclusivity and embracement of sporting curriculum activities in various schools through monitoring where after all, we create tournament (rugby). The (training) activities or sessions should be embraced throughout the year through clustering," said Muma.
"We will mobilise resources through partnerships and training in liaison with our schools development committees to review sport budgets for sourcing sporting infrastructural equipment and necessities," Muma said.
"So the SDC should therefore relook at their budgets and possible partnerships with sporting associations to attract more money or investment into sporting activities. Once our parents begin to appreciate the essence of sports among learners, we would therefore move forward together as one without discriminating or neglecting other learners based on their physical appearance or location," he said.
Speaking during his address at the Mashonaland West Rugby 7's tournament (festival), Mliswa claimed that there is need for genuinely embracing and equip requisite skills amongst learners through equitable quality training and deployment of trainers throughout rural and urban schools.
"We need responsible authorities to genuinely allocate sufficient budget budget for sporting curriculum where certain amount is set aside for training of trainers. With specific mention to rugby, training should make sure that everyone from university or college should be trained well until they are accorded level three (3) coaching certificate where upon deployment, they will be equitably impart requisite skills amongst learners regardless of geography," Mliswa said.
"Rugby is not expensive in terms of making sure it is embraced well by both rural and urban schools, but what is only needed is the will and exposure. The infrastructure and efforts channelled towards football or netball should be the same since they might be used interchangeably to accommodate other sporting disciplines," Mliswa added.
"So after training of trainers, we need the education ministry to ensure that they deploy trainers with level 3 coaching certificate even in rural schools. This would therefore enable all schools to be centres of rugby skills excellence where we tap and identify best from remotely located schools who will shine on international platforms while representing the country," he added.
"In Mashonaland West, we decided to take this game even to rural schools in our quest to prove that it (rugby) is not only for the elite as presumed by some, but to show that even rural learners are also capable and what is only needed is exposure. We therefore keep on churning out the best from primary, secondary and tertiary education until they can play for the national, regional and international teams," Mliswa said.
Meanwhile, Mashonaland West Provincial Education Director (PED), Mr Gabriel Muma concurs with Mliswa, announcing that as the ministry, they are embarking on various strategies to ensure there is no elitism in sports amongst all schools.
"We are inclusively creating structures to ensure that the same labour and required skills are deployed within the reach of all learners regardless of their geographical location. We are also doing educational campaign and outreach programmes in partnership with qualified, skilled and experienced coaches where we finally deploy them amongst rural schools as part of sporting curriculum for development," Muma added.
"The reason why we bring these educational stakeholders here including primary and secondary schools heads under one roof is to make sure that they embrace the requisite sporting skills initiative from grassroots right up to highest levels. These stakeholders would therefore launch the same in their various schools and set-ups," Muma added.
"We will make follow up on the development, inclusivity and embracement of sporting curriculum activities in various schools through monitoring where after all, we create tournament (rugby). The (training) activities or sessions should be embraced throughout the year through clustering," said Muma.
"We will mobilise resources through partnerships and training in liaison with our schools development committees to review sport budgets for sourcing sporting infrastructural equipment and necessities," Muma said.
"So the SDC should therefore relook at their budgets and possible partnerships with sporting associations to attract more money or investment into sporting activities. Once our parents begin to appreciate the essence of sports among learners, we would therefore move forward together as one without discriminating or neglecting other learners based on their physical appearance or location," he said.
Source - Byo24News
