A SPEECH DELIVERED BY MR MATHIAS TULASI,CEO- READ GHANA FOUNDATION AT OPEN DAY CELEBRATION OF TSITO METHODIST BASIC SCHOOL ON 24TH JULY,2018.
Mr Chairman, Chiefs and Opinion leaders present, Staff, Parents,Invited Guests,Pupils,The Media, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Good morning to you all gathered here. I want to first of all congratulate the organizers of this very important event on the Theme " Quality Infrastructure For Quality Education Delivery: The Role of Stakeholders.
Ladies and gentlemen. Today's gathering is very important because education, as we all know is the bedrock of every society.
It is life itself and so therefore, as stakeholders we must do everything possible to protect it.
Education helps an individual to think intensively and critically thereby helping the individual to act responsibly as a citizen in so many ways.
Mr Chairman, the choice of theme for the occasion is very appropriate because classroom buildings, laboratories, and equipment thus education infrastructure - are very crucial elements of learning environments in schools.
There is strong evidence that high-quality infrastructure facilitates better instruction, improves student outcomes, and reduces dropout rates, among other benefits.
Research shows that, the design of education infrastructure affects learning through three interrelated factors : naturalness (e.g. light, air quality),
stimulation (e.g. complexity, color), and individualization (e.g. flexibility of the learning space).
Although education policy makers are increasingly focusing on the quality of education and school learning environments, but it looks as if as a country we have piecemeal approach to investing in educational infrastructure. On this note, l want to congratulate former President John Mahama for what was able to do by building a lot of school infrastructure across the country.
Though urban schools are better equipped than rural schools, many are overcrowded which comes with its own challenges.
What is the way forward? I know for sure this school produced a lot of Old Students who are better placed in different fields of work across the country.
This is the time for us to fish out, the Old Students to enable them organize themselves and come to the aid of their Alma Mata.
The school should adopt ways of raising funds in order to support great initiatives through writing to individuals, companies etc.
Mr Chairman, permit to digress a little. Representing a literacy foundation here, I must say that, the inability of pupils to read and understand is largely contributing to the poor performance of pupils.
The fact remains that, if all pupils can read and understand, they will all be able to do very well in all the subjects taught at school.
Many parents are not helping their children to learn how to lead at home but they are very interested in watching TV programs with them. This is very sad because it is destroying their future.
In those days, we had what we called bedtime stories but now nothing like that in our Ghanaian homes.
Reading, parents should understand is the key to learning and they should make conscious efforts in promoting reading among children at home.
Parents should buy books for their children on their birthdays instead of the usual biscuit, toffees,egg etc
Parents should always read aloud to their children at home.
Pregnant women should also make it a point to read aloud to their unborn babies during the 6th month of pregnancy till they give birth.
To conclude, let us all be willing in proposing a holistic and evidence-based model to inform decisions about investments in education infrastructure across the country.
A reading nation is a winning nation.
Next academic year , Read Ghana Foundation, will donate story books to the school as part of our commitment towards reading promotion among school pupils across the country.
Together, we will shape and change the future of education in Ghana.
Thank you all for the attention granted me and
God bless our homeland Ghana!
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