School sport with social distancing is not an oxymoron

Unprecedented times call for unprecedented measures. These by their very nature have to be imaginative and visionary. Globally governments are between a rock and a hard place.

The search is on for the correct oxymoronic plan to open up the economy and life in general while guaranteeing social distancing to slow the spread of the virus. The structure of the SA government’s current multilevel strategy is highly regarded.

The devil, however, is in the detail of definition and implementation. This unfortunately has started to drive a wedge between the authorities and the people.

The smoking ban is a good example; the rigid regulation demands that more than 7-million people give up smoking immediately. This increases stress at a time when this needs to be defused.

Every aspect of life is under siege. Sport is no different. To be clear, this column is not about the opening up of professional sport and stadiums. That is for a later debate.

This column focuses only on the need, when schools reopen, to introduce sport/after-school activities and life skills to give pupils a full holistic education. This is a school’s duty and the pupils’ undisputable right.

The gift of sport is that it releases anxiety, stress and reduces depression. Properly supervised, social-distanced, after-school activities must be allowed when schools open.

The government’s White Paper of 2011 and National Sport and Recreation (NSR) plans for 2020 and 2030 actually target sport to be a nation builder and help SA become an active and winning nation. This vision needs to be ignited during the Covid-19 crisis.

The 2020 and 2030 NSR plans document the value of sport to be physical and psychological, which benefits education, life skills and social adjustment. They state that sport is an all-encompassing solution to transformation, the development of positive values and optimism, and a life with less criminal activity, among many other unequivocal benefits.

Research globally supports these premises.

Sport nurtures the mind, body and soul. That is what the youth of SA need right now. Importantly, it is easy to allow physical education and afterschool activities from day one.

If schools are judged to have the correct level of Covid-19 safety standards in enclosed classrooms, outdoor activities will be easier to manage.

Initially, the process can be facilitated by the availability of the non-grade 7 and 12 teachers. These teachers, with the coaches, will be able to manage the physical education and after-school activities in separate small groups of 10.

Integrated activities, such as scrumming in rugby and matches in sports with physical contact, will not be possible.

However, fitness training and sporting-code drill exercises can easily be coached in groups of 10 as required. Music, art and chess and the like are even easier to manage.

Life skills, too, can be shared in these sessions. Individual sports such as surfing and golf pose no problem at all.

The current rod-of-iron approach will, by its very nature, produce serious pushback. This is what the country is facing now on many fronts; smoking being just one example.

We need to learn from the lessons in history, particularly those in living memory.

The draconian enforcing of Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in schools alongside English led to the influential 1976 uprising in Soweto.

Social unrest is usually a consequence of the incapacity of the government to deal with the new and unheard of demands of a changing society.

Online schooling is limited in townships and poor rural areas, owing to a lack of the correct equipment. The 6am-9am walk/run/cycle window is hardly safe in a township.

Also, many homes do not have running water, so postexercise supervised washing at school after sport is safer.

The back-to-school regulations need to lighten the load placed on families, particularly in underprivileged environments. In these areas the school remains the haven of learning, playing, fun and safety.

Let us not make the 1659 James Howell proverb “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” become a reality.

This virus is likely to be an 18- to 24-month issue. Innovative and imaginative methods need to be laid out within the multilevel opening of life in SA, to facilitate the nation moving through this crisis as one.