The North Tongu District has emerged best in this year’s Volta Regional Reading Festival, after beating other five districts, Ho Municipal, Kpando, Ketu North, Ho West and Anloga at the finals of the competition.
The event which was held in Ho, saw Ho West and Ho Municipal securing the second and the third places while Ketu North and Kpando had the fourth and fifth positions respectively with Anloga placing sixth.
The event organised by the Ministry of Education, Ghana Education Service and USAID-Learning will see the first three districts representing the Region at the national level festival, slated for September, this year.
Madam Enyonam Afi Amafugah, Volta Regional Director of Education, speaking at the event said without a firm foundation in literacy and numeracy, an academic journey would become extremely herculean.
She said a firm foundation in literacy and numeracy was crucial to achieving academic success, urging all relevant stakeholders to collaborate to ensure that the country achieves high literacy.
The Director commended the USAID for its intervention in the educational sector, especially at the basic level which she said had resulted in the training of thousands of teachers, curriculum leads, directors of education and improving literacy.
She said since 2014, USAID-Learning programme has brought great transformation in teaching and learning of literacy with state-of-the-art strategies and time-tested phonics approach to instruction of literacy.
Madam Amafugah said the Directorate in collaboration with Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and other stakeholders organised a regional level education forum with a focus on helping the young ones to enhance their knowledge in numeracy.
Mr Gershon Dorfe, Senior Inset Specialist, USAID-Learning, said the ability to read was the foundation for future successful learning and advancement in all spheres of social and academic work.
“The best legacies we can leave for our children is the support for the acquisition of good reading skills,” he said and urged all stakeholders to pool their efforts together to develop good reading skills and habit among learners at the basic level.
He said the goal of the USAID-Learning was to support the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service to improve reading performance in public schools.
The Inset Specialist noted that the Regional Reading Festival was to sustain the gains of the project, strengthen ownership and offer opportunity for learners to demonstrate their reading abilities.
Mr. Dorfe said since 2014, the USAID has procured over 14 million teaching and learning materials (TLMs) for public schools and currently it had developed, printed and distributed TLMs to over 5,000 schools and trained over 22,000 teachers in the use of the TLMs under the Transition to English Plus activity.
Ms Samelia Mekporsigbe, a class three pupil of Battor D/A Primary School who represented the North Tongu District at the final, told Ghana News Agency, she was happy to represent her district which emerged the best.
She said the school was well prepared to represent the region at the national level and was optimistic that the region would prevail at the region.
Source: newsghana.com.gh