By Bernice Bessey
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is partnering the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the Ghana Education Service (GES) to help primary school pupils inculcate the habit of reading.
The partnership, which focuses on learning, is targeting 2.8 million children from kindergarten ‘1’ to Class ‘3’, and 51,000 teachers with an amount of US$71 million for a five-year period. The USAID grant, within the period, hopes to scale up the learning process at an early grade, improve, expand, and sustain the reading performance of primary school pupils nationwide.
The project would also look forward to enhancing the use of the mother tongues/languages in the teaching of children. Launching the project in Accra Monday, June 14, 2015, the Minister of Education, Prof Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang, said enabling young learners acquire proficiency in literacy and numeracy, especially at the foundation level, is a solid basis for continued education to the highest level possible.
She stressed that reading is basic to the learning enterprise. “The joy of every stakeholder in the education fraternity is to see our children reading in the local language and/or English, which is our official language and to the highest level possible.”
To improve reading habits, the Ministry between 2013 and 2014 increased the textbook to pupil ratio to one textbook to three children. She pledged the Ministry’s continued partnership with USAID to improve education. To support the Government of Ghana reach the goal, the U.S. Ambassador to Ghana, His Excellency Gene A. Crete, said children who can read in the early grade perform better academically in later years.
The Ambassador was of the view that even a child born to a mother who can read is 50 times more likely to live past five years. He further added that adults who can read are more engaged citizens and more likely to vote, adding: “Literate adults earn higher wages than those who cannot read.” To ensure the smooth running of the project, parents, chiefs and the entire community would be engaged.