The Ashanti Regional Director of Education, Joseph Kwabena Onyinah, has attributed the poor reading habits among pupils and students to the influence of the media and internet. He mentioned the growing habit of watching of television programmes, video shows and playing other games on the internet by pupils and students as the cause for low reading habits. Mr Onyinah, who was speaking at the launch of the seventh Ghana International Book Fair in Kumasi last Tuesday, also identified misplaced priorities of some parents and inadequate care for the development of the child as a major factor. The Ghana Book Publishers Association in collaboration with the Ghana Education Service (GES) organised the fair on the theme: "A reading nation is a winning nation." Mr Onyinah indicated that a report on the 2005 and 2007 National Education Assessment Tests in English for primary three and six pupils in the country revealed poor performance of public school pupils in literacy skills in English language. He said the GES had, therefore put in place a national literacy task force to provide strategic oversight policy direction for the design and implementation of national literacy instruction approach to address the problem. Mr Onyinah said GES has identified Ghanaian language materials under the Assistance for Teacher Education Programme to serve as the base for the development of a national literacy instructional approach under the National Literacy Acceleration Programme (NALAP). Mrs Agatha Akonor-Mills, Secretary of the Ghana International Book Fair, urged teachers and parents to encourage their children to read wide. She also advised parents to spend some extra money to buy books for their children and ensure that they read them. Mrs Akonor-Mills noted that a book was a unique tool for the acquisition of knowledge that would empower the children to lead lives worthy of emulation. Reverend Dr Edem Tetteh of the Department of Publishing Studies at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), who chaired the launch, regretted that most Ghanaians blame the government for any educational problem. “We hardly realize that problems related to learning successfully may have their roots in the family", he said. He stated that it was more profitable for parents to help children to acquire wisdom and understanding, than the acquisition of wealth and personal materials. Source: GNA