Pupils in Tolon District attend Reading Festival
The Northern Regional Director of Education, Alhaji Mohammed Haroon, has urged basic and pre-school teachers to teach their pupils in their mother tongue in addition to the English Language since the two languages, played critical roles in encouraging children to cultivate the habit of reading at the early stage of education.
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He noted that the ability to speak both the local dialect and the English Language at the same time would help improve the academic performance of the younger generation.
Alhaji Haroon said this at the maiden Reading Festival for pupils from Kindergarten (KG) to Primary Three from Tolon and Nyankpala in the Tolon District in the Northern Region, last Thursday.
The festival
The festival, which brought together 200 pupils, was to encourage pupils from KG to Primary Three to cultivate the habit of reading.
The children were also provided with some textbooks to read at home in order to sustain the initiative.
The Reading Festival is an initiative of the Ghana Education Service (GES), in collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). It is supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
It would be replicated in Kpandai, Kariga and Savelugu in the Northern Region, Builsa North and South and Garu-Tempane districts in the Upper East Region and Wa West and East and Lambusi Kani districts in the Upper west Region.
Academic performance
Alhaji Haroon also urged teachers to encourage children to cultivate the habit of speaking the English Language during public gathering, saying this will enable them to perform well in both academic and social life.
He noted that the academic performance in the region continued to decline because schoolchildren failed to read, thus making it difficult for them to express themselves during examination.
“If a child is able to read, it will be easy to get all forms of knowledge to build up their lives,” Alhaji Haroon said.
The UNICEF Education Officer, Madam Gloria Dakpala, urged teachers to create reading corners in all basic schools to encourage children to cultivate the habit of reading.
She reiterated the commitment of the UNICEF to sustain the programme to get more children to know how to read at the tender age.
Language skills
The Tolon District Director of Education, Rev. Mrs Georgina Anaba-Nuagah, expressed gratitude to the UNICEF and USIAD for the support, saying the initiative would go a long way to help inculcate the habit of reading in the younger generation.
“Language is a key issue in our social life and the ability to function effectively and efficiently in almost all sphere of life depends on language skills,” she said.
According to her, the ability of individuals to read makes the study of other subjects easy, thus enabling the educational directorate to achieve its mission of providing quality formal education and training for the schoolchildren.
She called on parents to engage their children in activities that would help them love reading as it would help them to become better adults.