Representative from Ghana Education Service (GES), Malcolm Frimpong, has advised students of basic schools in the Greater Accra Region to see education as the gateway in building and nurturing their talents to become prominent people in the society.
According to him, every talent needs to be refined to become a better one, and that can be achieved through education, stating that having quality education in addition to talent helps students develop faster as well as becoming disciplined within their field.
“Without education, footballers cannot sign good contracts, they will be cheated. If you are signing the contracts, you must understand whatever information that has been provided before signing. Another important thing is through education, you are exposed to guidelines that will give you more knowledge about whatever talent you have,” he said this during the opening ceremony of the Indomie Under-13 Football League.
Mr. Frimpong indicated that sports contribution to nation building is enormous, and GES places much emphasis on that; therefore, it would provide the necessary support to the organisers to help them unearth talents at the early stage.
He called on the organisers to continue their good effort by extending it to other regions to help discover more talents across the nation. He was hopeful that the programme would contribute greatly to the lives of the students participating.
The Indomie Under-13 Football League seeks to discover talents from basic schools. In view of this, 32 teams – out of which 18 schools from the private sector – were selected from the Greater Accra Region to compete among themselves in eight zones. The winners from the various zones have further been put together to compete for the ultimate price.
To ensure gender balance, the organisers also have put together some female teams from selected schools to compete as well. At the end of the competition, the winner is takes home GH¢6,000 cash prize and GH¢4,000 worth of products.
Some of the participating schools include Achimota Basic – Achimota, Martin Luther – Ashaiman, Gbawe experimental – Gbawe, Awopedec – Teshie, Grace Beacon – Sukura, Teshie camp 2 – Teshie, Adenta Basic – Adenta, among others.
The Marketing Manager of Indomie Ghana, Akshay Kalra, mentioned that the idea to put together such a programme was birthed about two years ago but COVID-19 disrupted it, thereby causing the delay.
He added that the company believes in nurturing talents; therefore, giving students such an opportunity forms part of their belief to help young ones discover their talent. He said after the maiden edition, they will further organise such competition for schools in other regions to give them equal opportunities.
“Our objective here is always nurturing talents, and the country’s main sport is football. So we decided to organise this to give opportunity to some students who have talents but do not have anywhere to display it. We are expecting them to have a healthy competition; and from here, we will move to other regions,” he said.
