Mankranso (Ash), Aug. 25, GNA - The Ghana Book Trust (GBT) has spent more than 980 million cedis in the last two years to train 336 lower primary school teachers in the Ahafo-Ano South district in English reading skills.

Mr James Osman-Adjei, Ashanti Regional Co-ordinator of the Ghana Book Trust Reading Skills and Library Management, said similar training programmes had been organised in the Sekyere East, Adansi South and Bosomtwe-Atwima-Kwanwoma districts in Ashanti.

He was briefing Mr Eddy Obeng-Darko, the Atwima-Nwabiagya District Director of Education, who also has oversight responsibility on the Ahafo-Ano South district, when he interacted with 224 lower primary school teachers attending a two-week workshop on the teaching of English skills at Mankranso on Wednesday.

Topics being discussed included pre-reading activities, major English challenges of teachers, test administration, preparation of comprehensive lesson notes and preparation of teaching and learning materials.

Mr Osman-Adjei, who is also the Ashanti Regional Guidance and Counselling Co-ordinator, said the training was necessitated by the poor performances of pupils in English language in the 1999 Criteria Reference Test (CRT).

He said by the end of the training programme, teacher's output would be adequately improved. Mr Osman-Adjei said each of the lower primary school pupils in the district would be given seven different titles of English books to facilitate their studies.

The Trust, he said, had strengthened its support team to effectively monitor the activities of the teachers to ensure the maximum success of the programme.

Mr Obeng-Darko commended the Ghana Book Trust for its timely intervention to reverse the low academic standard in the district and advised the participants to justify the huge sums of money that has been invested in the training programme.