The Ghana Library Authority has held its maiden training program for some librarians of Senior High Schools in the Ashanti Region.
The training forms part of the School Libraries Transformation Programme, spearheaded by the Ghana Library Authority with support from the Ministry of Education, and is aimed at inculcating a reading lifestyle among young people.
A Deputy Minister of Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum in his address at the launch of the program said the training is a sign of government’s commitment to quality education.
While encouraging the librarians to continue to read and be abreast with information about their profession in order to inspire students to read more, he said the must “be agents of change and be innovative in motivating students to patronize the use of the resources at the libraries .
The Acting Executive Director of Ghana Library Authority, Hayford Siaw, applauded the participants for the enthusiasm they have shown for the training programme and pledged that the Library Authority will continue to invest in the development of librarians across the country.
“The GhLA will continuously invest in ongoing professional development for school librarians and we will soon roll out online courses that will afford you the opportunity to acquire additional skills in library and information science” he said.
On her part, the Board Chairperson of Ghana Library Authority Board, Dr Helena R. Asamoah Hassan encouraged the beneficiary Librarians to embrace the opportunity and learn as much as they could.
“Since you have been denied this training for very long time, make optimum use of the engagement with the facilitators and go back to equip your students to enable them be ready for rigorous research and information search at tertiary”, she said.
The SHS Librarians are expected to implement the knowledge acquired in organizing their libraries, create visibility for the library among the student population and optimize the use of the materials available.
Librarians in Senior High Schools in the Ashanti, Bono, Ahafo and Bono East Regions participated in the training.
Librarians from the Greater Accra, Central, Western and Western North Region who are in the second zone will have their training before those in zone three, representing Eastern, Volta and Oti Regions.
Zone Four will cover schools in the Upper East, Upper West, Savannah, Northern and North East Regions
About 700 school librarians are expected to be taken through training areas such as cataloging and classification, preservation of documentary materials, practical use of library management system for collection management and many others.
