PUPILS URGED TO TAKE READING SERIOUSLY (PAGE 54, JUNE 16, 2010)

THE Ketu South District Director of the Ghana Education Service (GES),Mr Sam Kwami Tumaku has advised pupils to take reading very serious since it is the bedrock for the growth and development in their education career.
He said with good reading habits,they could easily articulate themselves in public and also serve as a platform to achieve success in their examinations.
Mr Tumaku said this when he delivered a lecture on the theme,“Reading: Pivot of transformation” at the inaugural ceremony of a reading club for the Kekeli Preparatory and Junior High Schools at Aflao.
He commended the organisers of the programme for choosing a theme which was vital and apt to make everyone become useful for the family and the society
Education, he said, is a process that has no end and principally based on the ability to read.
Mr Tumaku said when education was received,it built knowledge, skills, ability, habit, values,attitudes, which were cumulatively considered as indices for shaping human character.
He stated that the most important asset of a nation was it’s citizens, adding that productive citizens could superimpose their talents on natural resources and tap them, but without productive citizens, the resources would remain untapped to the disadvantage of the nation.
Mr Tumaku warned that lack of education could cause “an academic death” that would consequentially cause unwarranted suffering to those deprived of it.
The Chairman of the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) of the school, Mr David Dzikunu, paid tribute to the founding fathers of the school, saying that perseverance conquered all difficulties.
He said the new reading club would expose their potential to become news readers and allied professionals in the media industry.
Mr Dzikunu commended teachers of the school for keeping pupils in the correct track towards the achievement of high laurels.
The patron of the reading club, Mr Gabriel Donne Amuzu, disclosed that the club reached the semi-final stage of the Abidjan Lagos Corridor Organisation quiz competition and took awaya 21-inch colour television set and plastic chairs.
He added that the reading club was presented with exercise books, pens, pencils, among other items at a similar quiz competition organised by an Accra-based non-governmental organisation.
Mr Amuzu stated that members of the club had appeared on radio programmes to display their ability in news presentation, debates, poetry recitals and quiz competition.
He appealed to the general public to come to the aid of the club with reading materials, and impressed on parents to encourage their wards to read at home.
The chairperson for the occasion,Mama Ayaba II, who is the queen of Adafienu, commended the teachers for the exposition of skills which had led to the delivery of quality education and high rate of success in the district.