Lameck Omara Apita, the Commissioner in Charge of Physical Education yesterday flagged off the Fresh Dairy Secondary School Games – 2020 edition with a call to schools to avoid using none students popularly known as Bachuba.
The flag off, that took place at the magnificent St Mary’s Stadium in Kitende, will see over 600,000 students taking part in 7 different sports disciplines.
Patrick Okanya, President – Uganda Secondary Schools Sports Association (USSSA) the organizers of the Games said this year, the Fresh Dairy Secondary School games have registered an increase in participation of students from approximately Four Hundred Eighty thousand (480,000) in 2019 to approximately Six Hundred thousand (600,000) in 2020. The total number of disciplines to be competed in will remain at seven (7) as in 2019.’
Discipline Boys Girls Total No. of Teams
Basketball 24 24 48
Football Girls U20 - 32 32
Rugby – 15’ 12 - 12
Hockey 12 12 24
Table Tennis 12 12 24
Bad Minton 12 12 24
Tennis 12 12 24
Okanya added that the Fresh Dairy Secondary School Games which will start on 6th March 2020 will climax during the National Finals to take place from 1st – 10th May 2020 in Gulu district at St. Joseph Layibi and Sacred Heart Secondary School. This year’s Games will run as follows:
The qualification rounds kick off from 6th – 31st March 2020 at all USSSA sports districts. They will be followed by zonal qualifiers from 1st – 19th April 2020 at all zonal areas and the national finals will climax the competition from 1st – 10th May 2020 at St. Joseph Layibi & Sacred Heart S.S in Gulu district.
Vincent Omoth the Marketing Manager Fresh Dairy said last year they started a five-year contract with Uganda Secondary Schools Sports Association (USSSA) worth Three Billion, Eight Hundred Eighty-Five Million Uganda Shillings (Ushs3,885,000,000) to boost sports in secondary schools across Uganda.
“Over the past 1 year, we are pleased to see a progression in secondary school sports through better quality of sports being played now, but also an increase in the number of students and schools participating,” said Omoth.
Omoth added that as title sponsors of the Games, they are humbled by the role they are playing in growing the stature of Uganda’s secondary school games.
“Our sponsorship essentially serves to nurture the sporting talent of our youth while highlighting the need for health and nutrition using our products. We believe in developing a complete individual in terms of Sports, Academia and Health,” stressed Omoth.
He said their sponsorship this year, will again go towards kitting every team with each player getting two sets of kits during the national finals, publicity, branding venues, activations in regions, and administrative costs including trophies, medals and certificates.
“We are also mounting a robust advertising and publicity campaign for the games across Uganda to heighten participation and interest in the games nationally,” added Omoth.
Omoth elaborated that as part of the 2019 Fresh Dairy Secondary School games, Fresh Dairy unveiled Three (3) University Sports Scholarships for the best-performing students in Basketball (2) and Rugby (1) who were also required to score at least 19 points in their 2019 Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE).
This year’s scholarship details and the winners of last year’s scholarships will be announced during the course of this year, after the recently released 2019 UACE results are matched and vetted against the 2019 top performers of the Fresh Dairy Secondary School Games by USSSA.
