The Ministry of Education in Ghana has received more than 3.7 million English teaching and learning textbooks from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The books, which are part of the Transition to English (T2E) project of the USAID, would be distributed to over eleven thousand basic schools across the country.

Handing over the books, the Ambassador of the U.S. to Ghana, Virginia Palmer, said that the U.S. government was committed to supporting the government of Ghana in improving early grade reading achievements in English and other official languages.

Palmer indicated that the idea of the learning to read programme was very important because no one can read to learn unless they learn to read first.

She also said that the delivery of the teaching materials was about five million dollars and the entire programme was valued at U.S.$96 million.

It was gathered that the materials were fully developed in Ghana by Ghanaian writers and designers and printed by Buck Press, a local printing firm.

Speaking at the event, the Minister of Education, Yaw Osei Adutwum, emphasised on the quality of work undertaken, which he said justified the government’s decision to engage local printing companies to do the printing in Ghana.

The minister reiterated the government’s commitment to developing a seamless education from basic to tertiary in the West African country.

That, he said, included removing all barriers from basic to tertiary education by ensuring that Ghanaians received the best education comparable to the rest of the world.

Photo source: UNICEF