An educationist and a publisher, Elliot Agyare, has called for a policy to prioritize reading skills at the basic level of education in the counrtry to halt the decline in education.
He said reading must be made a priority to improve the quality of education in Ghana which some have described as “going from bad to worse.”
“Reading is key, you learn to read first before you read to learn. We have to put that in perspective, that’s how it works. How do you begin to read a science book, how do you look at an instruction in mathematics, how do you begin to look at RME. Reading is key. Frankly, I think we have to focus on that because that is the foundation on which everything else is built,” he indicated.
Mr. Agyare’s suggestion follows the release of a survey published by the National Education Assessment (NEA), which shows that about 98% of pupils in primary two cannot read or understand the English or a Ghanaian language.
The Minister of Education, Prof Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, last week directed basic school teachers to desist from using English as a sole language in teaching children in primary one to three.
She said: “when we teach children in languages that they do not understand, teaching and learning do not take place and frustration begins to build.”
However, Mr. Elliot Agyare, CEO of smartline publishing limited, and a former head of the Ghana Publishers Association commenting on the NEA report on the Citi Breakfast show called for the provision of books and adequate resources to enable the school children adopt the habit of reading right from an early age.
“If the children don’t have any book how can they read,” he opined.
For his part, Philip Davidson, a retired educationist and a literacy consultant called on the GES to increase efforts aimed at addressing the lapses in the educational system.
By: Godwin Allotey Akweiteh/citifmonline.com/Ghana