Street Children Empowerment Foundation ( SCEF), a non-governmental Organisation, in partnership with Book Aid International, has supported some public schools with library structures and books under it’s Reading Is Basic (RIB) project .
The RIB project seeks to engage local students in regular reading and learning to improve their school performance and also to reduce the school drop-out rate due to lack of study areas and libraries.
The Project seeks to promote supplementary learning through establishment of libraries in selected schools, improve quality of education through access to books and instil in students the habit and essence of reading and empower library users to participate effectively in school learning programmes and activities.
Mrs Joelene Clottey, programmes manager, SCEF, said Ghana Education Service officials, head teachers, teachers and prefects were engaged to grow their understanding on the importance of reading and then to establish and support regular access to books and reading by students, within the project schools.
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The beneficiary schools are seven urban public schools in James town and Dansoman, five rural communities in the Ga South Municipality with three Non governmental organization providing reading sessions for the community.
She said teachers from the selected schools were oriented and trained in refreshener courses on how to handle library books, lending processes, minitoring and safe keeping of books, adding, “this has helped taeachers to acquire new skills and confident in their use of books to support a range of curriculum subjects – using fiction and non-fiction books.”
“We realised that teachers find it additional task to monitor and supervise and so there’s no proper handling of books and the children are denied access to reading materials. The sense of having a library is to help children read and write”.
Madam Faustina Naana Forson, Ghana Education Service, Head of Supervision, Ga South, commended SCEF for the project, adding the beneficiary schools under her Supervision had seen improvement with the RIB guidelines where learners had gained knowledge and improved on their reading skills.
“I must say that the orientation and training given to our teachers in the selected schools with the needed resources has really helped in achieving the project objectives, “she said.
She appealed to government to train and deploy more librarians or specialised teachers who would solely help manage the library facilities in the schools.
Mr Yakubu Issah, Communications Officer, SCEF, urged beneficiaries to make good use of the library, adding, reading was a fundamental basic in all areas and must be given a priority.
