Ayariga meets institutional heads

Minister of Youth and Sports, Mahama Ayariga has met the various heads of the tertiary institutions to address the issue of nurturing talents.

The meeting which witnessed heads from the public universities, polytechnics and the colleges of education aimed to revamp new strategies and policies to arrest the interest of students with skills and train them to compete in national and international competitions.

Ayariga said, development of sports at the grass-roots was essential and needed to be encouraged and well structured.

“Looking at their policies regarding sports at the tertiary level, I believe that it is not possible to have a huge number of students converging at one place without any sports men and women to win laurels at national and international competitions.

"If we find no talent to unearth, it means we are not doing our work well. We can begin to unearth talents to nurture them for future events. The same thing will be done at the secondary level,” he said.

President of the Ghana University Sports Association (GUSA), Joseph Kwesi Ogah said that sports as a recreation and competition was a paramount issue that must be addressed.

Director of Sports at the University of Ghana, Bella Bitugu said programs must be designed to identify the problems facing the various sports departments.

Ayariga called on corporate entities to sponsor athletes with the view that government cannot shoulder the cost alone.