ROTARY CLUB OF TEMA DONATES BOOKS TO SCHOOLS (PAGE 11)

THE Rotary Club of Tema in partnership with the Ghana Education Service (GES) and Brothers Brother Foundation (BBF) in the United States of America (USA), has distributed books of various disciplines worth over US$240.000 free of charge, to 60 selected schools across the country.
The schools include the New Somanya Methodist School, TI Ahmadiya Senior High School, Tarkwa Methodist Senior High School, Mampong School for the Blind, Bolgatanga Polytechnic and Benkum Senior High School, Larteh. Each school received a package of books valued at US$4,000.
In a speech read on his behalf by the Director of, Basic and Secondary Education, Mr Stephen Adu, at a ceremony in Tema to hand over the books, the Director-General of the GES, Mr Samuel Bannerman-Mensah, commended the Rotary Club of Tema for their immense contribution to the education sector.
He said the essence of book fairs was to enhance the reading habits of students and to broaden the knowledge of readers.
Mr Bannerman-Mensah observed that the social responsibility of creating a literate society through the exposure of the pupils, students and the public to the various types of books in the various disciplines was highly commendable and one worthy of emulation.
He was of the view that the different subject areas introduced would broaden the outlook of the students.
Mr Bannerman-Mensah said if education was important, then reading was equally important since one could not be educated, without showing great interest in reading.
He noted that it was practically impossible because the two were bedfellows and therefore, urged the students to cultivate a reading habit to broaden their memory.
The President of the Rotary Club, Mr Ben Aniagyei, disclosed that the club had in the past two years distributed one million two hundred and forty thousand books worth US$ 12.4 million to schools in the country.
He said in 2008 the club introduced an annual book fair as part of its literary month activities to create awareness and to draw the attention of schools and the public to the book distribution project.
Mr Ben Aniagyei said the 2009 project marked the second book fair in the series to help enhance patronage of the books.
He noted that March was celebrated as Literacy Month on the Rotary calendar and this had helped to lift the literacy efforts of promoting early childhood reading.
Mr Aniagyei appealed to pupils to cultivate the habit of reading and urged parents to assist to make reading a tool for making the youth knowledgeable.