School kids in Kwahu West receive plaudits

School children in the Kwahu West Municipality of the Eastern Region who borrow books from the Kwahu West Municipal Library and ICT Centre always return them in the state in which they got them.

This, according to the authorities, has helped in ensuring that the books are neat for others to also have access to.

The well-stocked library and ICT Centre has books for all subject areas

Students and pupils from public and private schools come to do their practical work there on a daily basis.

The ICT section teaches students and pupils basic lessons on hardware and software at the 50-computer capacity lab.

The ICT has been designed to service two schools a day. They come with all forms and all the schools in the municipality and individuals are entitled to have access to the library.

Each student or pupil pays an amount of GHp30 a day for an unlimited number of hours.

The officer in charge of both the library and the ICT Centre, Patrick Kabutey, said even though the Municipal Assembly has been helping the library, they charge each child GHp30 “just to support the purchase of electricity”.

The Library Assistant, Gifty Dela Johnson, who is in charge of those who borrow the books, said “the primary pupils pay GH¢2 for the whole year. It is subject to renewal every year when you borrow a book”.

She said “when you take a book, it lasts for two weeks and we check the books before they take them home”.

“Just about two out of a lot will harm their books and we caution them to avoid that and if it happens continually, we contact your parents”.

Miss Dela Johnson noted that “they always bring the books back so parents should allow their wards to come and register”.

The Municipal Chief Executive, Yaw Owusu Addo, when contacted said “there was a World Bank Fund before he was appointed as MCE for such projects and it was not used by the previous administration”.

He said he got to know when he was appointed and “they told us what we should use it for….so I met my executives….it took four months to build that library”.

He explained that if he had not used the fund for such a project, the Assembly was going to pay interest on the amount to the World Bank even though it was a grant to the Assembly.

“We were supposed to have paid interest on that money even though it was given to us for free but I made sure it was used profitably.”

Lawyer Owusu Addo said, “the library needs a standby generator to help learning whenever electricity power goes off”.