Accra, March 10, GNA - The Ghana Education Service (GES) on Thursday signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Worldreader, a US Non-Profit Organisation, to adopt a device that allows students to access books electronically.

The Worldreader, which aims at providing digital books to students in the developing world, will provide the device called "Amazon Kindle" which can be used to store up to 3,500 books electronically and give Ghanaian publishers an opportunity to reach a wider audience.

The E-reader programme gives students access to local and international text books as well as story books anywhere and every time once they have the device.

Mr Stephen Adu, Deputy Director General in charge of Quality and Access at the GES who signed the agreement on behalf of the Service explained that having access to books electronically had many benefits and reduced the cost of book production.

He noted that having books electronically made it easy for review and update but noted that the GES would monitor the performance of the device to know how effective and useful it would be for students and teachers.

Mr Adu expressed the hope that the programme which was currently being piloted in the Eastern region could improve access to quality education and would be further expanded to cover the whole country. Mr Collins McElwee, an Official of the Worldreader.org said the E-reader programme, when fully implemented, would increase the number and variety of books as well as other supplementary reading materials. It would also improve student performance on standardised test of reading, writing and English proficiency and also reduce waiting periods for classroom learning materials. "The Amazon Kindle puts a whole library in the hands of a child," he said, and noted that, the device worked anywhere a mobile network could work in Ghana or anywhere one could receive a call and added that reading and study materials could be ordered and downloaded using wifi and USB.

He commended the efforts of Ghanaian publishers like EPP, Afram, Sam Woode, Woeli, Smartline and SEDCO for making their books available for free downloads by students. So far the project, which had cost about $900, had been implemented on pilot basis in six schools, with over 500 students and 35,528 books, made up of local textbooks, local story books and international story books. Mr McElwee said there was a research and monitoring programme in place to assess its impact on students and pointed out that the programme would be rolled out on a larger scale when the unit cost of the device was reduced.

Mr Peter Argo, Deputy Mission Director at USAID, said getting e-readers in the hands of all children in Ghana may not be a reality in the next few years but would contribute significantly to understanding the effective use of technology in Ghanaian classrooms and its role in promoting quality basic education in Ghana and throughout the world. "High printing cost and difficulties in distribution make providing reading materials to children in Ghana an on-going challenge to the quality of education," he said. Mr Argo noted that reading skills were essential for all children in Ghana and added that development experience demonstrated that increased literacy and numeracy helped alleviate poverty. He expressed USAID's dedication to support improved reading instruction in Ghana, saying, 93USAID supports this combined effort to harness the power of both reading and e-reader technology and to promote the quality of basic education."