Publish books locally - Publishers urged

Kumasi, Oct 8, GNA - Mr Kwaku Ansah-Asare, Director of Readwide Ghana Limited, has appealed to Ghanaian publishers to publish books locally.

He said publishing books locally could help reduce the price of books and other publications to enable people to afford them. Mr Ansah-Asare said this in a speech read for him at the launch of the 23rd Book Week celebration organized by the Ghana Association of Book Industry Students and Associate (GABISA) at the Publishing Studies Department of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi at the weekend. It was under the theme, "Ghana @ 50, The Role of the Book Industry".

He said the nation's bid to eradicate illiteracy would be a mirage if the cost of producing and the prices of books continued to increase since people would not be able to buy them to enhance their knowledge.

The Director said he was not happy that most Ghanaians did not like reading and this had affected the development of education. Mr Ansah-Asare appealed to parents to make it a habit of buying books for their children as presents during special occasions like Christmas and on their birthdays. He said plans were far advanced for him to establish reading clubs in all schools.

This is aimed at encouraging students to read and appealed to school authorities to organize reading competitions to encourage students to cultivate the habit of reading. Mr Isaac Kofi Appiah, former Head of the Publishing Studies Department of KNUST, urged students to adopt the habit of learning a word a day since that was a sure way of developing their vocabulary and knowledge. He attributed most offences and breach of contracts to people's inability to read and understand simple instructions such as signpost and directional signboard and advised students to strive at all cost to acquire knowledge through reading.

Mrs Vesta Adu-Gyamfi, Dean of the Faculty of Industrial Art of KNUST, said since the book industry affected every facet of life, there was the need for the book industry to be given a boost. She attributed most examination malpractices to students' bad attitude towards reading and called for a change to enable them go through their education without much difficulty.