The Upper East Regional Directorate of Education has organized a Regional Reading Festival to help improve reading among learners in the early stages of education.
The Reading Festival is an intervention by the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Ministry of Education in collaboration with USAID Learning.
It comes against the backdrop of a survey in 2014 which suggested that only 2% of learners at the basic level could read and understand their grade level material which implies that 98% of children could not read and understand their grade level material.
The Reading Festival saw learners from basic one (1) to basic three (3) from all fifteen (15) districts of the region take part in reading and answering questions from the text as part of testing their level of comprehension.
Learners were also made to read Kasem for participants from both Kassena-Nankana Municipal Assembly and Kassena-Nankana West district.
While describing the intervention as commendable, the Upper East Regional Director of the Ghana Education Service, Edward Azure noted that it will generate the children’s interest in reading adding it will go a long way to improve reading and learning at the lower level.
He tells Dreamz News that it is important parents show interest in the progress of their children in school, provide learning materials and assist them to engage in exercises that will help children learn.
“It’s a forum for us to showcase what we have been doing. The intervention that the USAID Learning partnership has brought on board and I stated that a survey conducted before 2014 indicated that just about 2% of our children could read their grade level material and understand. What it means is that 98% could not read and understand their grade level material. So, this intervention came about to address the poor reading skills”
Parents who show interest in their children and talk to them, do better in school. I will therefore urge parents to help by providing learning materials to augment what the GES is doing,” he admonished.
Nana Baffour Awuah, Director for Pre-tertiary Education, Ministry of Education, says the festival sits well with the ministry’s transformational agenda. “The whole activity aligns well with the transformational agenda of the ministry for education in the country hence the partnership to organize this reading festival,” he stated.
Below are the results of the Regional Reading Festival
The Ghanaian Language of Instruction (GLOI), Kasem reading competition for Basic two was won by Kasena-Nankana Municipal 62 points (1st)Kasena-Nankana West 54points (2nd). The basic three competition was again won by Kasena-Nankana Municipal with 72points (1st) and Kasena-Nankana West 64points, placing (2nd)
The Transition to English (T2E) saw Bongo District obtain 97points to win the reading competion for Basic one (1), Kasena-Nankana Municipal obtained 90points to place (2nd) and Builsa South came (3rd) with 86points.
The competition for Basic two (2) was won by the Nabdam District with 93points (1st), Bawku Municipal came (2nd) with 82points and Talensi placed (3rd) with 77points.
Basic three was won by Bolgatanga East with 125points followed by Kasena-Nankana Municipal with 119points. The third place went to Kasena-Nankana West & Binduri District which both obtained 109points.
