Dr Austin Luguterah, Director of the University of Ghana Sports and Wellness Directorate, says university sport in Ghana must be recognised as more than a series of competitions.
He was speaking after the UG Sports Dialogue, an initiative created to provide a platform for discussion about tertiary and university sports in Ghana.
Dr Luguterah said the event aimed to underline the wider value of sport in university life and encourage institutions to make it an integral part of the student experience.
He described universities as an important link between amateur sport and professional federations, while also highlighting their role in helping students develop relationships and skills outside their academic programmes.
According to Dr Luguterah, university sport is sometimes wrongly regarded as a distraction or as an activity confined to events such as the Ghana Universities Sports Association (GUSA) Games.
“University sports goes beyond GUSA. GUSA is just a platform to bring everybody together, and that’s a wonderful platform,” he said.
“But we should also see university sports as within our various universities, how we promote sports and how we can make sports change the whole narrative in the system.”
Dr Luguterah said students from different academic disciplines could use sport to meet one another, build networks and gain experiences that were not available solely through classroom study.
He added that the UG Sports Dialogue would act as a voice for stakeholders in university sport and would be held every semester.
The event will bring together people working in the sports industry, as well as individuals with previous experience of university sport.
Presentations during the dialogue examined practices used by leading universities around the world. They showed how sport can support the development of institutions and contribute to economic activity, Dr Luguterah said.
He argued that universities should not be viewed as places concerned only with academic work.
“People will not think that university is only for the academic issues, but even the world’s number one universities also participate greatly in sports, and sports is business even at the university level,” he stated.
Dr Luguterah said the dialogue was intended to encourage a broader understanding of how sport can influence university communities, support student development and help shape the wider direction of institutions.
