NGO restocks basic school libraries in Bolgatanga

The Centre for Sustainable Rural Development (CESRUD), a non-profit organization, has supplied reading books to 22 basic schools in the Bolgatanga Municipality of the Upper East Region.

The schools in the Bolgatanga North and West ‘B’ Circuits received 275 books each, including foreign and local ones.

The support was financed by the Rotary Clubs of Tema District, the Hague-Metropolitan District and Biblionef Ghana, non-governmental organizations.

Speaking at a brief ceremony to hand over the reading materials to the various beneficiary schools, Mr Rex Asanga, the Executive Director, said CESRUD had over the years collaborated with the Friends of African Village Libraries (FAVL), an American based charity organization, to establish three community libraries at Sumbrungu, Sherigu in the Bolgatanga Municipality and Gowrie-Kunkua in the Bongo District and stocked them with relevant books and other learning materials.

He said through the collaboration with Biblionef Ghana, CESRUD had established mini-libraries in all the beneficiary 22 Primary and Junior High Schools and had been stocking them with books.

The libraries were set up and stocked to make learning materials available and easily accessible to the pupils to inculcate in them the culture of reading, he said.

When the children learn to read properly, teaching becomes easy and it would lead to improvement in academic performance.

Mr Asanga said apart from the libraries project which had contributed immensely to raising the standard of performance in the area especially the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), CESRUD in collaboration with Amsterdam Bolgatanga Foundation had established a Teachers’ Resource Centre which was offering refresher courses to teachers in the municipality.

He said CESRUD through the support of its partners had over the years supplied textbooks and furniture to all the schools and had started building pavilions for Kindergarten in schools whose children did not have structures.

Mr Paul Ayutoliya, the CESRUD and FAVL Libraries Coordinator, said reading had improved, among school children in the area and all the beneficiary schools had library periods on their timetables.

Mr Leslie Kasanga, the Upper East Regional Librarian, applauded CESRUD and its partners for contributing to improving basic education in the municipality.

He attributed the recent falling standard of education to the lack of a culture of reading and therefore encouraged the teachers to find innovative ways of encouraging the pupils to develop the habit of reading.

Ms Theodora Ako, the Circuit Supervisor for Bolgatanga West B, urged the teachers to encourage and guide the pupils to make good use of the books.

She appealed to CESRUD and its partners to extend the help to all schools in the area to achieve maximum benefits.