By Kofoworola Belo-Osagie
To enhance reading culture among secondary school pupils, the Office of Education Quality Assurance, Lagos State Ministry of Education partnered with Readland, a non-profit organisation, on a programme to celebrate the World Literacy Day.
Held at Agidingbi Grammar School, Ikeja, the programme featured, among others, a drama presentation by pupils of Agidingbi Junior and Senior Grammar Schools based on Tribes Apart, a book by child author, Mojoyin Adeshina.
Acting out the book not only exposed the pupils to reading but taught them lessons about its theme which centers on unity in diversity and Nigeria’s rich culture and languages.
Eleven-year old Mojoyin, whose parents run Readland, was on hand to read portions from the book at the event, which was attended by government functionaries.
Tutor General/Permanent Secretary Education District VI, Olusanya Ebenezer Abayomi praised the pupils’ performance of the book. He said it was
“We are celebrating literacy day and we are happy to be here with them. The performance I have seen is a wonderful thing.
“They will now know that literacy day is an important day for them to showcase their languages. We told them they should love to embrace each other’s language,” he said.
Representative of the Office of Education Quality Assurance, Mrs Folake Oyewole said in line with the theme, Literacy and Multilingualism, the pupils were encouraged to embrace learning their mother tongue along with the English language.
“We are trying to promote the local dialect to impact learning on learners. We have several types of learners – extroverts, introvert and others.
“But we want to all learners to learn. We have to promote this learning and that is why we have this,” she said.
Mojoyin’s father, Mr Francis Adeshina, said Readland partnered with the Office of Education Quality Assurance to get more pupils to enjoy reading. He said the organisation hopes to give out many books by the author free to young people.
“Our joy is to bring fun to reading. Tribes Apart is first of the Nigeria of my dream series, which focus on providing solution-based books for young people to address national issues. The intention is to give out the books.
“Last year, we gave out 5,000 copies of “Bantu, the big fat bully”, free. We were also given a mandate to train teachers,” he said.
