IF lexicographers were to search for an image to help describe meekness, then Kenya basketball star Georgia Adhiambo’s face would be a near-perfect description.

Women’s national team captain and former United States International University of Africa (USIU-A) player Hilda Indasi says Adhiambo’s character is worthy of admiration by all because even when the situation calls for retaliation, she turns the other cheek.

“She (Adhiambo) is one of a kind; her meekness is out of this world, I have seen situations where I would have had my claws out but she has always walked away,” Indasi said.

Her meek nature blended with talent, hard work and discipline have seen her make a name for herself locally and internationally, eventually joining paid ranks as one of the few Kenyans who play professionally.

Born and bred in Nairobi, Adhiambo says she owes her success to her mother who raised and supported her after her father’s death.

“My mother has been very supportive and walked this journey with me. My father died when I was five years old so she has always urged me to keep pushing even when it seemed like all odds were against me,” Adhiambo said.

She is currently playing for Ubumwe Basketball Club, in the six-team Rwanda Basketball Federation women’s league.

“The management and organisation of sports here (Rwanda) is top notch, they have ensured that we play and remain safe while at it. It is very exciting to be in a bubble.”

She traces her journey back to Kariokor Flats where began playing basketball at her home court when she was 12.  

“There was a court where we stayed so I developed interest in the sport. I preferred learning how to play basketball rather than other games that interested children of my age at the time,” she added.

Adhiambo who admits that football was her first love says that she is thankful to Harrison Klaudia who she fondly refers to as coach Harry who taught her the basics of the game.

“I’m very grateful to coach Harry because he gave me my first basketball lessons and nurtured me to the point that I could get noticed by other coaches. He was very patient and would encourage me as well as my friends to put in more effort so we could improve and become better players.”

She later joined Form One at Hospital Hill School where she played football and handball. As fate would have it, former United States International University of Africa (USIU-A) basketball coach George Mayienga had seen her potential.

Mayienga realised high school was the best place to develop Adhiambo’s talent failure to which to would have gone to waste. He ensured Adhiambo’s basketball talent was saved by securing her transfer to city basketball powerhouse and reigning national secondary schools champions Buruburu Girls.

“Coach Mayienga had seen me in training and believed that I had potential to succeed in basketball. Even then Buruburu Girls was a big name in basketball and so he secured my transfer to the school and I got a chance to compete in school games.”

In 2010 and 2011, Adhiambo led Buruburu to third place finish at the national school games earning her side a ticket to the East Africa secondary schools extravaganza under coaches Julius Otieno and Mike Oluoch.

“Competing at the national and East Africa games helped shape the player I am today. Despite being very competitive, the games were very exciting and even though we never won a trophy, I learned valuable lessons.”

Her preference for basketball over football and handball bore instant fruit after she secured a sports’ scholarship at USIU-A in 2012 having done her form four exams in 2011.

 “Looking back I’m happy with the choice I made because basketball paid for my university education. I pursued a degree in Tourism Management and now I have something to fall back on when I’m done playing,” Adhiambo who also aspires to venture into coaching said.

Adhiambo’s star continued to shine as USIU-A Flames dominated the Kenya Universities Sports Association (KUSA) games winning back to back titles from 2013 to 2016. She says that as a student athlete, 2014 was her best year after they won both the KBF league title and the FIBA Zone Five trophy.

“It was a very good year, we were not only unstoppable but were determined to win both trophies. The teamwork was great; we played every match as if it was a final.”

Following a successful five-year stint with Flames, it was time to move on from the varsity side and her next stop was at the Coast where signed for KPA in 2017.

She triumphed with the Dockers bagging the league and Zone V gongs. Her prowess did not go unnoticed at the regional championship held in Kampala and Ugandan side A1 Challenge Club Ladies Basketball Club sought her services.

She sealed her first professional deal in 2018 with A1 Challenge and turned out for the side in the Uganda women’s league for two seasons reaching the semi-final play-offs.

Her club lost to JKL Dolphins in 2018 and Uganda Christian University in 2019. This year she signed for the Rwandan outfit, but before she settled Covid-19 pandemic forced her to shelve her ambitions.

“It feels good earning from what I love and enjoy doing, basketball pays my bills. I hope that players back home can also get a chance to make a living from their talents, they play for the love of the game but most clubs can’t even afford match allowances let alone salaries,” Adhiambo said.

She adds that what puts Rwanda above her East Africa geighbours is good management and commitment from federation officials and all basketball stakeholders.

“Rwandese have a passion for basketball and everyone involved makes sure they give their best. From the federation, clubs and individuals all work together for the good of the game. The league is sponsored by Bank of Kigali and individuals are also keen to contribute to the development of the sport by sponsoring some clubs that are yet to find corporate funding.”

For instance Ubumwe can afford Adhiambo’s services thanks to a group of individuals who sponsor the club.

She adds that Kenyans must invest in basketball and the national body should also enhance the efforts of securing a sponsor for the league.

Clubs on the other hand should capitalise of social media platforms like Facebook, twitter and Instagram to grow their fanbase so as to attract sponsors.

Sports runs in her family as her aunt Caroline Kola, the best female heptathlete in Kenya so far.

She holds the Kenyan heptathlon record of 5407 points set during the 1994 Common Wealth Games held in Victoria, Canada.

Her brother Cerry Otieno had a successful handball career with Cereals Board and also represented Kenya in a number of international assignments.  

Adhiambo made her senior national team debut in 2014 and has since been a regular in the Kenya Lionesses squad with her recent assignment being the 2019 women’s AfroBasket contest held in Dakar, Senegal.

Prior she played for Kenya in the 2010 under-18 competition in Egypt. “I always wanted to play for Kenya and when I got my first call up I never looked back, I worked very hard to secure my place in the final 12 that played in Kampala and I have since improved my skills to ensure that I retain my place in the team.”

On her work ethic Indasi says that Adhiambo is a charismatic team player who everyone would desire to have on their team.

She is very passionate about the game, charismatic and she always puts others needs ahead of hers. She is also a team player on and off and can easily fit anywhere. She respects everyone and strives to make life easier those around her,” Indasi said.

Adhiambo who idolises Los Angeles Sparks star Candace Parker and Kevin Durant urges upcoming players to maintain high levels of discipline, work hard and make use of technology to improve their skills and prowess in the game.

“Discipline, hard work and determination will take you places. Talent alone is not enough to make one successful. They must also take advantage of technology and platforms like YouTube and apps that show live games to improve their skills because no matter how good a player is there is always something you can learn by watching others,” Adhiambo continued.

She has set her eyes on succeeding as a coach with the aim of helping upcoming players excel.

I have interest in coach and my goal is to see the players I train succeed on and off pitch. I want them to excel beyond basketball, get scholarship opportunities and accomplish something in their lives. To see them doing well I must say will be my biggest achievement.”

(SOURCE: THE STANDARD)

Finance Minister Tito Mboweni’s Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS), delivered on Wednesday,  is devastating for many social services including basic education. The MTBPS says that government will reduce basic education funding every year for the next three years, leading to less money being spent per learner.

 Despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on lives and livelihoods, government will spend money on paying debt, including at mismanaged State-owned enterprises like South African Airways (SAA) and Eskom. 

While learners sit in overcrowded classrooms and use unsafe toilets, and school taps run dry, Minister Mboweni has chosen to sacrifice education funding:

• The total basic education sector budget will not increase at all between this year and next year. When inflation¹ is taken into account, the education budget will shrink every year for the next three years.
• The Minister did not reverse the R2.2 billion cuts he made to the provincial education  infrastructure grant (EIG) in June’s  special Covid-19 budget. These cuts have resulted in  1 938  essential school construction projects – paid for through the EIG – being stopped or delayed! 
• While R475 million has been rolled over from last year to the national school infrastructure backlogs grant (SIBG) to pay for toilets in Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal, money was cut elsewhere in the same budget, including in funding for the Eastern Cape, resulting in the national grant increasing by only R139 million.
• Budget cuts to programmes aimed at improving maths, science and technology in schools and preventing HIV and AIDS, amounting to R128 million, were not reversed.
• R10.5 billion was allocated from across the budget to rescuing SAA. This amount is almost equal to South Africa’s entire school infrastructure budget for this year. R276 million was taken from the Department of Basic Education’s budget to help pay off SAA’s debt!
• No new money was given to the National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP). This is worrying because a few months ago the DBE said in court papers that it might struggle to pay for food parcels in November and December.

Pattern of shrinking education spending

For many years, the education budget has been growing very slowly, hardly keeping up with inflation. But when the national budget was delivered in February this year, it showed, for the first time in recent years, a decrease in the total basic education budget – when inflation is taken into account. This budget reflects the entire pot of money that is given to national and provincial education departments. Worryingly, yesterday’s MTBPS revealed that this pot of money will continue to shrink over the next three years.²When inflation is not taken into account, the basic education sector will receive exactly the same amount of money next year as it received this year – a 0% increase! However, as the graph above shows, when we take inflation into account, the basic education sector’s budget will decrease by four percentage points between now and the next financial year.

School infrastructure

Safe and sufficient school infrastructure is crucial to creating environments that enable quality teaching and learning. Yet thousands of South African schools still do not meet the minimum standards for infrastructure that the law demands. The Covid-19 pandemic has painfully highlighted how not having  proper toilets or water threatens learners’ health and how not having enough classroom space can interrupt learning time. Moreover, had sufficient investment been made to addressing the apartheid backlog in school infrastructure since 1994 to ensure the safety and dignity of learners and teachers, less money would have had to be spent on temporary structures such as mobile toilets and classrooms and water tanks during the pandemic.

Despite this, cuts were announced to infrastructure budgets in June’s special Covid-19 budget. Schools are being forced to use their already overstretched budgets to provide Covid-19 essentials such as sanitiser and masks. Government has put in place expensive and temporary solutions, such as mobile classrooms, to try and solve old problems like overcrowding. However, these temporary fixes will affect government’s ability to make sure schools have permanent solutions to infrastructure challenges. 

The MTBPS promises that over the next three years, there will be a focus on “ensuring that planned infrastructure projects in basic education… are delivered on time and within the available budget.”³ But the DBE and provincial education departments have a terrible track record when it comes to meeting their own, legally binding deadlines for resolving school infrastructure problems. 

“The [budget] cuts affect me negatively, because at our school, we don’t attend classes every week and only come to school on some days and this affects our education. We don’t learn well at all. Our toilets also don’t work… we don’t have proper sanitation.”

– Bali Nkosi, Gauteng Equaliser (EE member), Grade 11

Unless there are meaningful increases to the basic education budget over the next three years, government will probably break its promises to fix our schools.

National School Nutrition Programme

When schools closed on 18 March 2020, the National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP), which millions of learners rely on for a daily meal, was suddenly stopped. This was devastating because it came at a time when many families were facing job losses and struggling to put food on the table. On 17 July 2020, the North Gauteng High Court ordered government to reopen the NSNP to learners who qualify, whether or not they were back at school. While the conditional grant that pays for the  NSNP was not cut in the special Covid-19 budget or the MTBPS, R50 million that was not used because of school closures, was reprioritised to pay for Covid-19 essentials.⁴ 

Government did not add any money to the NSNP budget, despite the DBE saying that providing food for learners at home can be more expensive than providing meals at school. If learners continue to only go to school on some days, or if schools are closed again, government may not be able to afford providing all learners with meals. For the many learners who rely on the NSNP for their only meal of the day, this would be a crisis.

“The budget cuts haven’t sat well with us, and they affect us, especially around food. Food is important. Food is essential for children. If you haven’t eaten you can’t concentrate in class. But if the budget goes up then maybe we’d get enough food so that we can concentrate in class and pass…”

– Mahlaba Matlou, Limpopo Equaliser (EE member), Grade 10  

National Treasury’s failure to consider a basic income grant or to continue to top up  the Child Support Grant (CSG), which reaches 12 million children in South Africa, contributes to increases in  hunger, poverty and inequality right now, which has knock-on effects on schooling. Over the years, research has shown that there is a strong relationship between learner achievement and socio-economic status.⁵

Failing to protect social spending

The pattern of the cuts to basic education funding mirrors other trends in the MTBPS. This mini-budget cements government’s commitment to austerity budgeting, which means cutting government spending to reduce debt. Funding to health services, housing and social development has also been cut, instead of finding ways to raise more income from those who can afford to pay. The weight of budget cuts is largely going to be carried by teachers, healthcare workers and police. By 2024, salaries for teachers and other employees in ‘learning and culture’ departments are expected to decline by R114 billion – the largest decrease in wages across government.⁶

Conclusion

South Africa’s courts have said that the right to basic education includes certain core elements such as safe and sufficient infrastructure, scholar transport, textbooks, teachers, desks and chairs. The country’s Constitution also contains a right to basic education which is immediately realisable — this means that the government must do everything possible, including planning and budgeting, to make sure every learner has access to quality education. 

Government’s ability to fulfil this responsibility is now being limited by anti-poor budget decisions as well as economic pressures caused by corruption – made worse by Covid-19. Minister Mboweni must urgently reconsider his priorities in the MTBPS and put children at the centre of next year’s budget, by reversing cuts to education budgets.

(SOURCE: The authors of this analysis are Roné McFarlane, Julia Chaskalson, Jane Borman and Hopolang Selebalo.)