Statistics from the Association for the Development of Education in Africa newsletter indicates that 50 percent of the adult population in Sub-Saharan Africa is illiterate.

10 million of children in schools across Africa also cannot read.

Back home in Ghana, over 10 percent of Ghanaian children in class six cannot read while about 50 percent of the adult population is said to be totally illiterate.

JOY FM’s Nana Ama Agyeman-Asante on Friday set out to establish if there was any semblance of fact in the published data and returned with a conviction that there could indeed be a lot of reasoning in the popular saying that if you want to hide something from the African, you put it in a book.

While most respondents did not remember the last time they went to the library, others had not set foot there even though they admitted the facility existed in their schools.

For others, it was more the lack of time to read, because they have a lot of work to accomplish at home. Of course a few others had no problem with libraries and reading, and they told of the immense benefit accruing from the time they invest in their books.

For some others yet, their parents or guardians won’t buy them books to read no matter how forcefully they persist in their demands.


Listen to some of the respondents in the attached audio.