Empowering Ghana through reading

The fundamental issue is to find out if primary schools still have Reading as a period, or library time, which naturally would compel the statutory provision of the necessary tools and infrastructure.

The painful truth is the agonising practice in public primary schools, where there are no books or facilities to facilitate Reading as a period. In the absence of multiple copies of reading books, teachers sometimes have to write the content of a reading book painstakingly on the board, page after page, before he/she takes the pupils through.

The situation dramatically changes in private schools within bigger towns and cities, which are better stocked with library and textbooks, largely bought by parents. Here, reading periods are not as agonising; and kindergarten pupils learn to read regularly and fluently, and cultivate reading at home.

Where textbooks abound, teachers need not exhaust their notes on the board; they discuss part of the subjects on the board,