Madam Eugenia Tachie-Menson, Country Director of Young Educators Foundation (YEF), a non-governmental organization, has called on the Ghana Education Service (GES) to engage local authors of international repute to produce storybooks.

She said by so doing, the authors would be sharing sights and sounds of the country, the continent and the world and also help keep them in gainful employment.

Madam Tachie-Menson made the appeal at the launch of the 8th Edition of The Spelling Bee (TSB) competition at the Jack and Jill School, at Roman Ridge in Accra, on Saturday.

The title sponsor of the programme is Indomie Instant Noodles in collaboration with other partners; Type Company Limited, Rufus Green Parks, PAS of US Embassy-Accra, Peace Corps Volunteers-Ghana, Multichoice Ghana, New Crystal Health Services, Newmont Ahafo Development Fund, E-toys and More, Muscatella, Voltic and the GES.

Madam Tachie-Menson lauded the decision of the GES for introducing ‘Reading Hour’ in the 2014/15 academic year to help stem the bad reading habits of the children.

“This is welcome news for us at The Spelling Bee because we are avid proponents of reading and believe a good speller is usually a good reader and vice-versa.

“It is our sincere hope that, this well-intentioned policy of the GES will be executed in a manner that will justify its introduction.”

The Country Director was of the hope that, in the not-too-distant future, the GES would also introduce a ‘Spelling Hour‘, saying that, the correlation between spelling and reading is very strong and depended on a common denominator of proficiency with the language.

She encouraged every primary school to create a spelling club for the children to develop a better understanding of spelling.

Madam Tachie-Menson said even though the Young Educators Foundation is striving to ensure that no child is left out in their educational programme, some of their sponsors are cutting back or totally withdrawing their funding due to economic challenges.

She said the development would directly affect the public schools in the regions outside Accra, but: “It is our fervent hope that our economy will be able to turn around sooner than later, so our children’s total education will not continue to suffer.”

Madam Josephine Kuffour, a retired educationist of GES, who launched the 2014/15 8th Edition of The Spelling Bee, described the programme as laudable and appealed to government to support the Young Educators Foundation to reach out to all schools in the country.