Ghanaian Writers Urged to Make Their Contents Available Online
Executive Director, Ghana Book Trust (GBT) Mrs Genevieve Eba-Polley.
The Executive Director, Ghana Book Trust (GBT) Mrs Genevieve Eba-Polley, has urged Ghanaian writers to make their content available online for children to access.
She said children who are mostly online these days are only exposed to e-books that portray Western culture, which might not be interesting and relevant to the children.
“Children need to be exposed to supplementary books that talk about real and practical African/Ghanaian experiences, lifestyle, and culture,” she said.
Mrs Eba-Polley made the appeal in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, on the side-line of the ‘Annual Burt Award for African Literature Speaking Event’ in Accra.
The Award is an annual library award and readership initiative that recognizes excellence in young adult literature and provides readers with engaging books that they want to read.
It was sponsored by CODE, a Canadian non-governmental organisation, in partnership with the GBT and made possible by the generosity of William Burt and the Literary Prizes Foundation.
The Award addresses an ongoing shortage of relevant, quality books for young people, while at the same time promoting a love for reading and learning at the junior and senior high school levels.
“Children these days find it more interesting to be on social media, interacting with people in other places, sharing their life experiences with them, and in turn don’t find books interesting,” she stated.
She also urged parents to encourage their children to read more books by providing them with supplementary readers, and creating time to read with them.
“If there is encouragement from home, the children would be more interested in reading, and when that is done, the children would not have any difficulty understanding other subjects”, she said.
In a bid to enhance the reading skills of children, Mrs Polley said the GBT within the past four years had set up libraries, donated library furniture and books to 75 public schools in three districts; namely the Amansie Central, Bosome Freho, and Asante Akim South Districts.
The Executive Director said the GBT also offers training for teacher librarians, and that each participating school selects a teacher who would be trained by the Trust as a librarian to help school children select books that they would find interesting at their level.
Mrs Eba-Polley said the GBT had chosen public schools, because they were not as endowed as the private schools in terms of availability of libraries and books.
She urged teachers to entreat school children to patronise community libraries; especially if there was no library in the school.
She called for the reintroduction of reading periods in schools where it was no longer in existence; so as to inculcate reading habits in school children.
SOURCE: GNA
The Executive Director, Ghana Book Trust (GBT) Mrs Genevieve Eba-Polley, has urged Ghanaian writers to make their content available online for children to access.
She said children who are mostly online these days are only exposed to e-books that portray Western culture, which might not be interesting and relevant to the children.
“Children need to be exposed to supplementary books that talk about real and practical African/Ghanaian experiences, lifestyle, and culture,” she said.
Mrs Eba-Polley made the appeal in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, on the side-line of the ‘Annual Burt Award for African Literature Speaking Event’ in Accra.
The Award is an annual library award and readership initiative that recognizes excellence in young adult literature and provides readers with engaging books that they want to read.
It was sponsored by CODE, a Canadian non-governmental organisation, in partnership with the GBT and made possible by the generosity of William Burt and the Literary Prizes Foundation.
The Award addresses an ongoing shortage of relevant, quality books for young people, while at the same time promoting a love for reading and learning at the junior and senior high school levels.
“Children these days find it more interesting to be on social media, interacting with people in other places, sharing their life experiences with them, and in turn don’t find books interesting,” she stated.
She also urged parents to encourage their children to read more books by providing them with supplementary readers, and creating time to read with them.
“If there is encouragement from home, the children would be more interested in reading, and when that is done, the children would not have any difficulty understanding other subjects”, she said.
In a bid to enhance the reading skills of children, Mrs Polley said the GBT within the past four years had set up libraries, donated library furniture and books to 75 public schools in three districts; namely the Amansie Central, Bosome Freho, and Asante Akim South Districts.
The Executive Director said the GBT also offers training for teacher librarians, and that each participating school selects a teacher who would be trained by the Trust as a librarian to help school children select books that they would find interesting at their level.
Mrs Eba-Polley said the GBT had chosen public schools, because they were not as endowed as the private schools in terms of availability of libraries and books.
She urged teachers to entreat school children to patronise community libraries; especially if there was no library in the school.
She called for the reintroduction of reading periods in schools where it was no longer in existence; so as to inculcate reading habits in school children.
SOURCE: GNA
No comments:
Post a Comment