The Ghana Education Service (GES) in Birim Central Municipality in an effort to improve cognitive skills of school children, has started a reading and spelling contest with a call for support to help regularise it.

The Ghana Library Authority is supporting the on-going week-long exercise in circuits A, B, C and D, covering six public schools, which represent each circuit at the Lower and Upper Primary and Junior High School level.

Mr Benjamin Cudjoe, Birim Central Municipal Director of GES, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency said, the competition would help children familiarise themselves with good pronunciation, develop smart thinking abilities and analytical skills as well as build self-confidence for effective performance in school.

He said the directorate wanted to institute a periodic inter-circuit reading and spelling contest, where winning schools for each circuit would meet for the grand finale.

Mr Cudjoe therefore appealed to individuals, departments and institutions to support the directorate to make the periodic contest possible and to extend it to all public and private schools in the Municipality.

Mr George Osarfo, Officer in-charge of the Ghana Library Authority in Akim Oda, said the library aimed to promote literacy and disseminate useful information to the people as well as encourage lifelong learning through reading materials and resources, and therefore committed to support any education programme in the Municipality.

The inter-schools reading contest started at Akim Oda Circuit 'C' featuring pupils from St. Anthony Basic School, Salvation Army Basic School, SDA Basic School, Ridge Experimental Basic School, Essam Basic School, and St. Luke Primary School.

At both lower and upper primary, St. Anthony Basic School emerged first with 26 points and 41 points respectively, while Ridge Experimental Basic School came first with 54 points for the JHS level.

Ms Lordina Appaigyaa, a class six pupil of St. Anthony Basic School, expressed enthusiasm about the contest and wished it was held every day.