That, she said, was due to the failure on the part of the Ghana Education Service (GES) to release funds for that purpose.

At the launch of the Reading Club of the Vodza Roman Catholic (RC) Basic Schools in the Keta Municipality in the Volta Region, Mrs Katsriku, however, urged circuit supervisors to do their best in the circumstance to improve the lot of the pupils.

The club is being jointly sponsored by the SOLASTA Foundation, a Non-overnmental organisation (NGO) based in Scotland and Champion Oil Company Limited, dealers in petroleum products.

The two bodies also donated school uniforms and teaching and learning materials to the students and the school respectively.

Mrs Katsriku underscored the need for the schools to observe 30 minutes of exclusive reading before lessons began.

Moral lifestyle

The chairman said the moral and social lifestyles of children in the school did not meet expectation and appealed to parents to play a great role in ensuring that their children were morally upright by taking more interest in their development rather than leaving it to teachers alone.

She noted that when parents showed more interest in their children’s development, the high rate of teenage pregnancy would decrease.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Reading Champion Project, Ms Philomena Xornam Anderson, said the organisation, being mindful of the fact that education was the surest way to emancipate the community from the shackles of ignorance and squalor, decided to invest in that sector.

“We want to be in the middle to have the dreams of equipping the future leaders of our society fulfilled,” she said.
Reading projects

Ms Anderson announced plans to replicate the reading projects in all basic schools in the Keta Municipality to improve the current poor Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) results in schools.

The CEO, who is domiciled in Scotland, said she, in consultation with others in the states, would acquire stocks of books to fill the various libraries in schools in the municipality.

The CEO of the Champion Oil Limited, Mr Alfred Agbosoo, said the company, as part of its corporate social responsibility, would ensure that children in basic schools in the municipality imbibed the habit of reading.

The Keta Urban Circuit Supervisor, Mr John Appoh, announced that enrolment in basic schools in the area had increased because of the new government’s Free Senior High School (SHS) Policy, and stressed the need for reading habits to be instilled in the children.

The Chairman of the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) of the school, Mr Lucas Xevi, appealed to parents to refrain from attacking teachers when their children were corrected in school.

The Headteacher of the school, Mr M.K. Desewu, pledged to work with the staff to improve the BECE results of the school.