‘Provide communities with libraries for use by children’
The Chief Executive of Links Across Borders, a Canadian non-governmental Organisation (NGO), Professor Sylvia Morrison, has called for the setting up of libraries stocked with quality reading materials in at least every big town across the country to create opportunity for schoolchildren to read and acquire more knowledge.
Advertisement
He said despite the wide use of the Internet in modern times to acquire all kinds of information, libraries still remained relevant to the progress of education in the country.
Professor Morrison of the School of Community Service of the George Brown College, Canada, who is also the queenmother of Kpedze-Todze, observed that children, especially those in rural communities, loved to read but did not have access to books, creating the wrong impression that schoolchildren abhored reading.
“If possible, every community must have a library for the future of our children. We should at least make them available in every big town because it will make it easier for neighbouring communities to also access the facility.”
Library project
Professor Morrison made the call during the inauguration of a library project by her organisation for the Logba Tota community in the Afadjato South District of the Volta Region.
Links Across Borders is noted for the creation of local reading clubs, building libraries, designing reading programmes and providing books for children in Ghana.
The community library, located at the Tota EP Primary School, was the fifth project undertaken by the organisation in the country aimed at contributing towards education. The organisation further presented two computers to the school’s computer laboratory.
She said an old adage that says, “if you wanted to hide something from a blackman put it in book”, was not true, pointing out that the truth was that most Africa children lacked access to books, adding that despite their difficulties, they could become world leaders if given the opportunity.
“That is why I believe the government must step up its game on provision of reading materials to schoolchildren because if we are thinking about progress, we cannot do that without reading,” she said.
Reading clubs
She also asked teachers to ignite the fire of reading in schoolchildren by establishing reading clubs to encourage the children to adopt the reading habit, pointing out that the NGO would continue to support education in Ghana, but appealed to the government to exempt such organisations from paying clearing taxes at the ports on the books they brought into the country for charitable work.
The Head of supervision of the Afadjato South Education Directorate, Mr Caesar Dei Ofori, said the directorate would ensure that qualified teachers were posted to the community for effective teaching.
He commended the NGO for complementing the government’s efforts to provide quality education to the people, saying “the cost of education these days is too huge that the government alone cannot do it but would need support from charitable organisations”.
