Universities urged to include sports into curricula

Tamale, Feb. 22, GNA - President John Agyekum Kufuor has urged the universities to consider including sporting courses in their curricula to challenge students to do more sports and not to regard sporting activities as residual activity.

He also asked the universities to develop more training programmes for sport professionals to give the industry the needed expertise to blossom.

President Kufuor made the call in a speech read on his behalf by the Minister for Education, Science and Sports, Professor Dominic Fobih at the opening of the 20th Ghana Universities Sports Association (GUSA) Games in Tamale on Thursday.

President Kufuor noted that sporting activities were very relevant to the unity, peace and development of country and has numerous benefits to the nation.

Sports, he said, also serve as a source of foreign exchange earner, an opportunity to market the potentials of the country and the promotion of tolerance and discipline.

The President explained that his government's commitment to the development of sport had been demonstrated through the hosting of "CAN 2008" and the construction of two new stadiums in Sekondi ad Tamale and the renovation of two others in Accra and Kumasi.

President Kufuor, however, said, "As a country, we need to do more to institutionalise sporting culture in our body politic". He suggested that sporting activities should start from the home and be seen as part of 'our regular life styles'.

President Kufuor said that the improvement of the economy had brought about some changing living styles and tastes of Ghanaians, adding, "Some of these changes could be detrimental to the health of the people and these could only be addressed through sporting activities to engender a healthy living".

In a welcoming address, the Acting Vice-Chancellor of the University for Development Studies (UDS), Professor Kaku Sagary Nokoe, said sports played a pivotal role in the prevention and management of degenerative diseases that plague the youth and the larger community.

He therefore urged coaches and other sport stakeholders to run comprehensive health and fitness programmes to complement the efforts of the government to reduce the rising lifestyle related illnesses among students and the various communities.

The Vice-Chancellor encouraged the visiting teams to work out a strategy to visit some of the tourist sites in the Northern parts of the country such as the Mole National Park at Damongo, the Larabanga Mosque and mystic stone all in the Northern Region and the Paga Crocodile Pond, Tongo whistling rocks, architectural designs in the Upper East Region and the slave sites and routes of the Upper West region. 22 Feb. 08