President of Ghana National Association of Private Schools (GNAPS), Eric Appiah, has charged the Akufo-Addo led government to make E-library one of its flagship project.
Taking a cue from the One District One Factory project of the government, Mr Appiah believes that One District One E-library in all the 216 districts of the country will help make reading accessible at all levels of education.
Speaking at the launch of the annual GNAPS week celebration, the GNAPS president noted that even though the government of Ghana continues to take practical steps to remove barriers that impede access, equity and quality of education, it is increasingly becoming necessary to visit one of the most important outcomes of education thus reading with critical thinking which seeks to address the language policy.
He said the information age has brought about rapid changes to every facet of our lives and it is amazing how information and technology have brought about tremendous improvement in the quality of lives of millions of people.
“It appears there is large information gap between our children and their counterparts in the western world. Although we are in an era where search engines such as Google and Kindle provides unlimited information about anything and everything on the surface of the planet, we can hardly count schools in our country which allows student access to the internet” he added.
“It is prohibited to carry laptops or tablets even in our second cycle institutions, yet these important tools are the libraries of the twenty-first century. We cannot afford to keep our children in ignorance whilst we live in a world where knowledge abounds” he stressed.
Mr Appiah stated that there must be a way to leverage the information age to harness our own socio-economic development and attain the country’s target for Strategic Development Goal (SDG) of 4.6% by 2030. “We should ensure that all youth and a substantial proportion of the adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy.”
The GNAPS president further called for a national reading programme at the basic school level to augment the USAID reading project.
“It will make it mandatory to read certain books and submit book reports which would ensure that children gradually develop from reading simply to complex text and reading fiction to non-fiction and classical books”.
He said a nationwide reading contest like the National Science and Maths Quiz should be instituted in the country.
The 2018 GNAPS week celebration is to reflect and undertake a deeper retrospect on educational policies and practices that enhance the socio-economic welfare of the people. The outcomes of the activities have not only enhanced the cooperation and collaboration among stakeholders but have strengthened the practice.
The theme for the 2018 GNAPS week celebration is ‘Promoting a reading culture: the key to the information age.”
