Speakers at the second Volta Basic Schools Drama and Poetry Festival Wednesday urged pupils and students to cultivate the habit of reading beyond their textbooks.
The two-day competition organized by the Centre for National Culture (CNC) in collaboration with the Ho Municipal Directorate of the Ghana Education Service (GES) was under the theme, “developing your writing and reading skills, your power of success”.
Mr Emmanuel Quao, Volta Regional Director of CNC, said one’s education and personality could be enriched through reading beyond the classroom and engagement in outdoor activities that sought to challenge the intellectual abilities of the one seeking knowledge.
He said writing and appreciation of drama and poetry were essential tools for cultivating critical thinking and intellectual enrichment.
“You can sit in your arm chair and travel round the world through reading”, he told the audience of pupils, students and teachers in the auditorium of the CNC in Ho.
Capt George Nfodjo (Rtd), the Member of Parliament for Ho Central one of the sponsors of the festival, thrilled the audience with a poem which he said he wrote when he was 23 years old and urged pupils and students to read and write constantly.
“Always carry a notepad around and jot down your ideas in it, put the ideas together read it and give it to others to read.
“Do not be afraid to write and re-write”, he said.
Madam Beatrice Afatsawu of the Ho Municipal Directorate of the GES urged pupils and students to take reading outside their textbooks seriously.
“Every week read a book because that is essential in developing skills in comprehending examination questions and approach to answering them,” she said.
Other sponsors were EPP Books, Accra, Unimax Macmillan Ghana Limited, Cocoa Processing Company Tema, Promasidor Accra, SIC Life Insurance Ho and RLG Communications Ho.