This follows damning reports of poor reading and spelling skills attributed to majority of basic school pupils in the Northern Region.

The Centre for Active Learning and Development (CALID), an NGO, lately revealed that 48.5% of basic school pupils in the Sagnarigu district of the Northern Region could neither read simple letter words or workout simple numeracy from grade 2 symbols.

The knock-on effect is poor performances at the levels of Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) and West Africa Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE).

Acting Director of the YEfL, Alhassan Abdul-Ganiyu at a round table discussion in Tamale on a year-long campaign dubbed, “One District; One Library: a catalyst for universal youth literacy,” asked government to implement the proposal.

According to him, the campaign was in line with the Sustainable Development Goals 4 and 6 which stipulates that “By 2030, all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy.”

“The goal of the campaign is to promote literacy and numeracy skills among the youth and to improve the educational outcomes in the region especially in the BECE and WASSCE.”

“The performances of students in these examinations are horrifying and consistently so for the past 8 years. We believe that the establishment of these libraries would help redirect the energies of the youth from cybercrime which has taken a toll on their lives to reading which would lead to increased performance in the BECE and WASSCE in the region.”

Northern Regional Director of the Ghana Library Authority, Aaron Kuwornu claimed truancy and laziness were major contributory factors to students’ abysmal performance.

He subscribed to the establishment of modern libraries across the region to overturn the situation.

The Director in charge of Planning and Monitoring at the Northern Regional Directorate of Education, Prince Askia Mohammed accused some school heads, parents and educational authorities of poor leadership.

“Huge investments have been made in the education sector over the years but still the quality is nothing to write home about.”

“Until there is a change in the behaviour of teachers, parents and authorities with regards to effective management of schools and strict supervision, the quest for quality education might take a long time to achieve”, he underscored.

The panel discussion brought together civil society organizations promoting quality education, the media and other stakeholders to interact with over 250 youth from the region.

The discussions proffered strategies required to improve access to quality education considering the consistent poor performances at the BECE and WASSCE levels.

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By: Abdul Karim Naatogmah/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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In 2016, she started a project of building one library annually in Ghana. She built the first library, known as the Read2Lead New School Library Centre, at Gbawe in the Ga South District in the Greater Accra Region, at the Gbawe Cluster of Schools and its nearby communities.

The library serves over 5,000 pupils.

As the Founder of Read2Lead, an organization that was created to breed the next generation of leaders through reading, Samantha Boateng, aided by her mother Francisca Boateng, and a project team from the New School of Northern Virginia, USA, they were able to gather 14,000 books to stock the first library.

In an interview with citifmonline.com, she stated that “it surprises me mostly when I realized that a developing country like Ghana lacks such facilities because in the US in my community, we had a lot of libraries all around.”

She further urged sponsors to come on board to aid in the building of the library.“…Also, we are looking for more sponsors to come and support these projects more especially the upcoming event on this Saturday with food, drinks etc” she stated.

Academic Bowl Competition

To monitor and evaluate how the first library is impacting positively or otherwise on the lives of the over the 5,000 pupils in the Gbawe Cluster of Schools and surrounding schools, Read2Lead is organizing a quiz competition for the pupils on Saturday, June 17, 2017.

The competition, Academic Bowl Competition, will see more than 10 schools in the Gbawe community participate to win prizes including tablets. Part of the funds raised will go to help maintain and improve certain aspects of the library in Gbawe.

However, there will be prizes which will go to the first top five students in the three top schools, in addition with other prizes like tablets, and games.

After the quiz competition, there will be a funfair and other exciting activities for students and residents in the community.

Explaining how Read2Lead came about, she explained that, “as an avid reader, it bewilders me that children my age have never stepped foot into a library nor do they know what one is. Books are so important to all people, young and old, to strengthen our minds and expand our intellects to be the engineers, politicians, teachers, and doctors of society. I want to help these children by starting an initiative called Read 2 Lead.”

The grand opening of the Asuodei Library will be on the 26th of June in Kumasi, as that day marks the birth of her grandfather, the founder of the school to honour him.
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By: Jessica Aryee/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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He said a national library was important because it would help to collect and preserve all publications of the country and perform other critical roles.

Mr Aggrey made the call during the eight Presidential Inaugural Lecture of the Association in Accra on the theme: “National Development through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – The Role of Libraries.”

Quoting the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science 2010, he said: “National libraries are supposed to be the official repository of printed work, the general access library, information bibliographical centre and the centre of coordination, planning and stimulation of the entire library system of the nation.”

“Many African countries such as Togo, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Somalia, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Cameroon, Mali, Chad, Southern Sudan, Kenya, and Nigeria have national libraries which are playing their expected roles,” Mr Aggrey said.

He said in the absence of a national library, the public library assumed further responsibility of preserving the cultural heritage of Ghana as well as providing resources and facilities for socio-economic development.

Mr Aggrey said libraries had significant roles to play in national development and that it was heartwarming that the current UN Agenda 2030 on SDGs provided a clear pathway for the inclusion of libraries and access to information in the national development plan.

He noted that the 17 SDGs were hinged on “poverty, hunger, health, employment, education, gender, sanitation, infrastructure, consumption, ecosystem, climate, peace, and partnerships,” adding that each nation was to set up structures to achieve the goals, targets and indicators.

Mr Aggrey said establishing a national library would help Ghana to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 as agreed upon by all nations.

He said it was relevant for the libraries to play critical roles in the achievement of the SDGs through repackaging of information for public consumption which could alter the behaviour of citizens to move in the direction of the goals.

Mr Aggrey called on the Government to increase the subvention given to libraries to ensure the effective management of public libraries.

“Government must resource the public libraries with the much needed funds, materials and infrastructure and, if possible, place libraries as a special unit under the presidency,” he said.

Mr Aggrey called for the establishment of libraries in all the districts of the country to help promote reading habits among Ghanaians to contribute to the development of the nation.

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Source: GNA

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