The Eastern Regional branch of the Ghana Library Authority (GLA) has opened entries for interested school children to participate in its Magic Pen Writing contest opened on March 1, 2021.

The first ever contest rolled out by the regional GLA seeks to promote literacy and ignite writing creativity of students in basic schools.

The competition is targeting those in upper primary and Junior High Schools.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Eastern Regional Director of Ghana Library Authority, Evans Korletey, expressed the hope that the initiative would help to sharpen the writing ability of pupils and build their confidence level.

He said pupils from the winning schools would all be registered under the “Yenko Library Project,” an initiative by the regional library to get all school children registered, and read at least, one story book every week.

He explained that qualified school children would be given the opportunity to write any short story of their choice with not more than 1,000 words.

They are also to get it signed by their head teachers and submitted to the nearest library in their community.

Entries for the contest, which opened 1st March 2021 is expected to end on 30th April 2021.

Mr Korletey said top 20 stories would be shortlisted and featured in the maiden kids’ story book, which would be launched and placed at various libraries across the region as part of their collections.

He added that the overall winner, first and second runners up would receive trophies, books, certificates, plaques and cash prizes, while their schools would receive books and certificates.