Ministry to collaborate with GES to save school sports

The Minister for Youth and Sports, Hon. MahamaAyariga has reiterated that government is ready to reposition school sports to unearth talents to represent the country in international competitions.

The Hon. Minister made this statement when he met with representatives from the Ghana Education Service (GES) last Friday, August 1, 2014to discuss how best the Ministry and the GES could collaborate to reposition school sports.

The Minister revealed that government is ready to develop sports infrastructure from the Junior High Schools to the Senior High Schools to help promote and develop sport in the country.

The Minister noted that schools competitions like; inter-schools competitions has been on a low key and it is the vision of the Ministry to rejuvenate such games to unearth talents at the grassroot level.

The Minister requested for the setup of a joint working group on school sports with membership coming from the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Ghana Education service that would be tasked among other things to review and present a comprehensive programme for the development and promotion of school sports.

The committee will be made to review the state of infrastructure in the basic and senior high school sports, develop a framework and programme for capacity building of physical education teachers and also develop a yearlong programme for school sports competition.

They will also be tasked to propose mechanisms for financing of school sports, propose strategy for the linkage of school sports athletes to national teams for quality representation of Ghana in international competitions and also develop a strategy to ensure that students take active participation in academic work and sports.

Mr. Stephen Adu, Director, Basic Education at the Ghana Education Service commended the Hon. Minister for this initiative and added that his outfit is ready to support the Ministry in this direction.

Mr. Adu indicated that school sports have gone down in recent times because of lack of funds and his institution was ready to work hand in hand with the Ministry to ensure that school sports see the needed improvement.