The importance of education

An article about the Brave Warriors player who preferred to pursue his law studies instead of his soccer talent that earned him a placement in the South Africa Premier Soccer League where he was earning peanuts, has prompted me to share my views with sportsmen and -women on the importance of education.
This player’s decision has touched my heart. Just think about how many of our sportsmen and sportswomen really get the chance to pursue academic studies at institutions of higher learning.
I hate to think that so many of our people are either in the police, army or are unemployed, and have to rely on the little money they make for a living.
I am just wondering how many advice administrators, coaches and trainers really give these men and women for them to see how important it is to have a qualification.
What is so inspiring about Ronald Ketjijere’s story is that he has focused on his academic career and still delivered for his nation when football duties called.
If we are able to instil his attitude in all the sports people and emphasise how important it is to at least have a qualification to fall back on, then we would be empowering our own people.
Administrators should emphasise to the young ones that their school comes first and to aspire to go past matric and proceed to university.
We should not only expect the administrators to encourage this but other relevant institutions also have a role to play. For instance, if you play for the Unam rugby team, you should be granted a chance to study so that when you leave the team, you have a qualification that can get a professional job afterwards.
It doesn’t have to be a degree but even a certificate in a preferred field that one is able to use to get a job when the sports glory comes to an end.
What happens to sports people now is that when their playing or running days are over, they sit at home and like one sports administrator said, if they talk too much then they become coaches - but that is not the future we want to build.
We surely do not want to see these once-active people sitting around and begging for money after they retire from sports. And, we need to realise that education is the greatest tool that will get our people out of that demise.
No one wants to see these once celebrities on the street corners and as soon as possible we must get the message across to them they need other qualifications to fall back on and encouragement to seriously focus on their education as well.
We need to realise that there is life after whatever sports we play and if one does not plan for that time when they finally call it quits, only then will one realise that there was a need to have another qualification to live on.
Sportsmen and -women, regardless of what level you are at, it is very important that you have another qualification to rely on and it is good to always think about the future. Take a moment to think of what you will do when for example you stop playing football.
There is life after sport and it is a life that will be harder than this one that you are living as a player who earns a salary every month.
The painful truth is that we might have ignored this need in the past but let us not sweep it under the carpet and let it be a collective responsibility for everyone to convey the message on how important it is to have a professional qualification to cushion us when our sports careers come to an end.
We have so many areas that lack in sports, such as a lack of dieticians. So, if we can get our netball players to study to become dieticians then that is empowering our people to impart that knowledge to others when they retire from the game.
Let us not take this need for granted for each one of us has an important role to play in taking sport forward.

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