YEFL to launch 'One District One Library' campaign

Youth Empowerment for Life (YEfL) is to roll out a ‘One District, One Library Campaign’ to complement government’s efforts towards ensuring quality learning outcomes especially at the basic education level in the Northern Region.

Tamale based Non-Governmental Organization, Youth Empowerment for Life, (YEfL) has proposed the introduction of “one district-one library” policy for Northern Region.

This follows damning reports of poor reading and spelling skills attributed to majority of basic school pupils in the Northern Region.

The Centre for Active Learning and Development (CALID), an NGO, lately revealed that 48.5% of basic school pupils in the Sagnarigu district of the Northern Region could neither read simple letter words or workout simple numeracy from grade 2 symbols.

The knock-on effect is poor performances at the levels of Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) and West Africa Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE).

Acting Director of the YEfL, Alhassan Abdul-Ganiyu at a round table discussion in Tamale on a year-long campaign dubbed, “One District; One Library: a catalyst for universal youth literacy,” asked government to implement the proposal.

According to him, the campaign was in line with the Sustainable Development Goals 4 and 6 which stipulates that “By 2030, all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy.”

“The goal of the campaign is to promote literacy and numeracy skills among the youth and to improve the educational outcomes in the region especially in the BECE and WASSCE.”

“The performances of students in these examinations are horrifying and consistently so for the past 8 ye