26th November, 2019
Minister of Youth and Sports Development Sunday Dare has pledged better synergy with private and public schools to develop school sports in the country.
The minister made the pledge on Tuesday in Abuja when he received the Chairman of the Governing Council of Nile University, Prof. Huseyin Sert.
In this light, he promised to create the necessary interface between private schools and sporting federations for them to participate in national tournaments.
He said this would widen the pool of potential athletes that could represent the country in international events.
Dare stressed the need for, especially private universities, to take part and excel in the Nigeria University Games Association (NUGA).
“We have federations that train athletes and during international tournaments, they bring them to us. You can bring your athletes to us. They can compete for the country and even go for the Olympics.
“We will create an interface between federations and Nile University.
“We are trying to develop a feeder process and I think Nile University and other private universities can feed into that,” he said.
The minister explained that he expected such collaboration to open opportunities for schools noting that they could use the National Youth Games and National Sports Festival as scouting grounds for selecting students to benefit from their sports-related scholarships.
Prof. Sert in his remarks said the University was increasing the number of scholarships it offered to sportsmen as part of the school’s contribution to sports development.
He said the University was willing to work more closely with the ministry in youth and sports development, especially the adopt-an-athlete initiative of the minister.