She said the reading competition, implemented by the community library unit of the college as its corporate social responsibility, was meant to inculcate the habit of reading  in children in deprived communities in the country.

Mrs Henaku, who made the appeal at the ninth congregation of the school in Accra, said the school was finding it extremely difficult to sustain the project due to lack of funds to buy reading books for the schools.

“The college is also finding it difficult to put together appropriate prizes for the competition, and we would like to appeal to everyone to help us sustain this project to revive the reading culture in our schools,” she said.

Graduation statistics

Four hundred and fourteen students graduated from three different programmes. Three hundred and seven graduated with a three-year Diploma in Basic Education, while 101 also graduated with a two-year sandwich certificate.

Six others graduated with a four-year-untrained teachers Diploma in Basic Education, which was the third group.

The principal lauded the government for introducing the Transforming Teacher Education and Learning (T-TEL) programme to improve the skills of the teachers in the college as it prepared itself towards the attainment of a tertiary status.

She advised the graduates to be diligent in their work and continue to shine as true ambassadors of the college wherever they found themselves.

Relevant of trained teachers

In his keynote address, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Dr Seth Amponsah Kwarteng, said the quest for quality education could only be achieved if newly trained teachers saw themselves as agents of change.

He indicated that the country was losing its cultural heritage in various areas, thereby leading to a loss of national identity.

Dr Kwarteng also advised the newly trained teachers to develop a right sense of knowledge and perception about the students they would be teaching to be able to identify their strengths and weaknesses and relate to them accordingly.