Ghana striker Abdul Majeed Waris insists that without formal education he could not have become a successful professional footballer. According to the former Nike Academy player his attitude towards education changed when he was enrolled into the Right to Dream Academy (RtD) from where he was awarded a student-academic scholarship to study at the Hartpury College in the U.K.
Waris made this known at the third edition of the Liquid Sports Ghana mentorship programme dubbed “Making it Happen seminar” which was held on Tuesday at the Presbyterian Boy’s Secondary School in Accra.
“Using myself as an example, if I had not taken my education seriously, I wouldn’t have gotten the scholarship to study in the U.K. and I wouldn’t have gotten the opportunity to sign my first professional contract,” he said during a question and answer session with the students.
Waris, who scored three consecutive goals as Ghana qualified for the 2014 Fifa World Cup, advised young students to learn to multi task in order to achieve their goals in life.
“We are still young but we have to learn to multi task. We have to learn how to use different things. We cannot concentrate on only one thing because you never know what you will pass through to achieve your aims in life.
“So even though I said I wanted to be a professional footballer, I had to go through education to become a professional footballer. Some of you might say, I want to be this or that but you might go through a different way to get what you want while others go straight. That is why we say you have to pray and work hard for everything.”
Asked a by another student why he did not take his academics seriously during his early school days, Waris said: “During my primary days, I was studying but I wasn’t taking my education seriously,” the Black Stars striker told the students adding that, “Even when I was selected to join Right to Dream Academy, my family said no because I wasn’t taking education seriously. So Right to Dream had to convince my family they were going to make me study before they allowed me to leave.”