16/04/2026
The Keta Library is currently running a literacy program in 16 selected schools in the municipality. The program being organised under the Ghana Library Board is also taking place in selected schools in the Anloga District and Ketu Municipalities.
In a recent baseline assessment and planned intervention analysis in relation to pupil's reading abilities and levels over 40% of pupils were found to be incapable of reading and only 5% were able to read and comprehend the given text effectively.
The report makes grim reading and these are worrying statistics. For over a decade now reading among children of school going ages across the country has been declining, and it is now evident in their reading abilities and levels, their performance at the BECE, WASSCE, and even at the tertiary level. Unless we actively put in place measures to ensure that children are exposed to reading materials early enough and helped to cultivate a love for stories early on things will not change.
Our local libraries and librarians may go beyond their job descriptions by taking initiative, running literacy programs, visiting schools and even visiting communities without library facilities to deliver books of all levels to school children and teach them to read, but if we don't support them they will not accomplish much.
It's time for all stakeholders in education to step up. The government must build libraries in all public basic schools and stock them with books students can read whenever they are free or during designated reading periods. If the government does not do it, former students of these schools should take the lead. A single room or classroom is all that is needed to start a library in any basic school. It can be furnished afterwards and stocked gradually with books.
Those of us who also borrowed and read books from these libraries should also reach out and support them in their work. Sometimes the librarians end up using money from their own pocket to print materials they need to use in their literacy programs. The current reading materials being used by the Keta Municipality for instance were made possible hy a Ghc 600 donation from Agblor Lodge. The libraries need to print more. We need more donors stepping forward. Our libraries need support in cash and kind to get our children reading regularly.
Let'e support our libraries in their efforts to get our children reading regularly so that they can develop the tools of thinking that will change their lives and the fortunes of their communities and the larger Ghanaian society. Let's do it now. Thank you.
By Stan Dugah
Blog No. 884
Let's Support Our Libraries
+233505615705
14/04/2026
