The Colleges of Education Sports Association (COESA) is set to host its 11th biennial National Colleges of Education Sports Festival at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology from the 21st to the 26th of November.
The event is themed, “Unearthing sports talents in the midst of pandemic: the role of Colleges of Education.”
It will be recalled that the last event COESA Games in 2020 postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The President of COESA, Alhaji Dr. Suleman Iddrisu, commented that the importance of the Games to sports development in Ghana cannot be overemphasised.
“Our role is to educate educators,” he said before adding, “Our core mandate is to train teachers at the basic level. If our students can go throw this process, they would have a positive effect on the children at the basic level.
“We have Cynthia Konan who is a national team goalkeeper for one of our junior teams currently schooling in my institution, Tamale College of Education.
According to COESA, about 900 male/female athletes drawn from the 5-zones of colleges of education would participate in the event. The athletes are made up of 150 representatives from the 5-zones consisting of the Ashanti-Brong Ahafo zone, Central-Western, Volta zone, and Northern Zone.
The 46 colleges of education initially competed for honours at the first stage of the Games before elite teams and athletes were selected for the grand finale in Kumasi.
The participating zones would battle for honours in volleyball, football, handball, netball, athletics, table tennis, and cross country championship.
Technical Chair of COESA, Bismark Tsorhe said one of the main objectives of the event is to get national call-ups for some prospective sportsmen/women.
“All the zones have had their zonal games and the athletes are on camp. I know the Northern zone is already on camp. We have invited national team coaches as motivation so we can expect some of them (athletes) to make the national teams. According to COESA, athletes would be given medals, certificates, and cash prizes for achieving honours at the Games.”
It would be recalled that the 10th Edition of the biennial National Colleges of Education Sports Festival was held at the Alhaji Aliu Mahama Sports Stadium, Tamale in 2018.
