USSSA Capacity Building: January Session Climaxes, Over 460 Walk home with Extra Knowledge
The sports governing body in secondary schools, The Uganda Secondary schools Sports Association (USSSA) continued with their obligation of educating teachers and their students.
The association has today, Friday climaxed their January one week workshops held at three different education centers in Kampala, Mbale and Gulu.
Like it was in the December workshops, teachers and students acquired knowledge of coaching and refereeing in the following disciplines; Football, Netball, Volleyball, basketball, Athletics, and handball, the other knowledge acquired was from Media and first Aid.
Over 460 participants took part in the above disciplines at three different centres, that’s; Sacred Heart Secondary School in Gulu, Mbale SS in Mbale and Kibuli SS in Kampala.
The main closing ceremony was held on Friday at Kibuli SS, Sammy Odongo, the assistant commissioner of Sports in Ministry of Education and Sports was the guest of honor, he thanked USSSA for holding these capacity building trainings and asked the participants to implement what they studied.
“In brief, I wish to thank all schools, all Local governments which sent teachers and students to these training camps to benefit from these capacity building trainings by USSSA which has worked closely with the national federations to undertake this program.” Says Chief Guest, Samuel Odongo
“We hope when this team goes back to the community and the schools, they will be able to implement what they were taught here in order for the government to achieve talent Identification and development. During my speech I emphasized the need for teachers to provide co-curricular education to the students and I also emphasized the need for all education institutions to have enough programs and facilities to teach physical education and sports in their institutions.”
The Association president, Justus Mugisha revealed that starting this year 2024, the students who have took part in the capacity building trainings, shall be the ones to officiate the games at district, zonal and regional levels.
He has also asserted that they are taking the level one Education to districts and zones, then the level two which has started this January will be at national level.
“For our games, at district, region and zones, will be officiated by our students themselves, we have also put in the rules of this year, for every team for example football….. we have been inviting 20 players from each school but this time will be 23 because there will be a Media officer, assistant coach and a referee who are students who studied these courses.” USSSA president Justus Mugisha revealed.
“Last year we set a target of training 5000 teachers and students but by the end of the year December, we hit the target of 7000, this year we have set a target of 30000 and we also decided that level one will now take at districts and zone level, and we shall make sure that we empower our zones and districts to have these courses but the facilitators will be facilitated by us at national level.” President highlighted.
The Kibuli SS centre contributed the biggest number of participants 251, Gulu produced 166 while Mbale had 52 making a total of 469.
The turn up has been low compared the that of December which had 563. However, Mugisha revealed that the high costs are some of the challenges but with the idea of taking the workshops to district level, the turn up will increase since the costs will also be low.