This, he said, was necessary to enable them improve on their performance in both the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) and the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).

He added that many students failed their examination because of the inability to read and properly understand not just the instructions but the questions.  Mr. Dapaah was speaking at a “10th Ghana/Netherlands Partnership and Reading Festival” held at Wenchi, in the Brong-Ahafo Region.

“Promoting education through reading – the multi-stakeholder agenda” was theme chosen for the event and in attendance were school children and teachers from across the Wenchi Municipality.

Mr. Dapaah expressed worry about the situation where greater proportion of children, about 50.7 percent (according to the 2013 assessment report), could not read a story book.  The report said only 1.8 per cent could read fluently and he asked that more was done to aid them to develop a passion for reading.

This called for the establishment well-functioning libraries and information and communication technology (ICT) centres in schools.  He asked teachers and parents to encourage children to take to reading.

Mr. Dapaah spoke of the readiness of his organization to forge stronger cooperation with the government to develop education and to also promote access to quality health care in Banda and the Wenchi Municipality.

With support from their Netherland partners, they had renovated a number of school structures, supplied reading books and provided boreholes in the two districts at a total cost of €196,000.00.