Ninth edition of Spelling Bee launched

Accra, Oct. 2, GNA – Mrs Margaret Okai, Divisional Deputy Director in Charge of Basic Education, Ghana Education Service (GES), said co-curricular activities formed an integral part of the school curriculum and as such much importance needed to be attached to them.

She said school activities did not always end when teaching and learning time was over for the day, but there were some activities that took place outside the normal class hours, which should be organised properly to involve all pupils and teachers.
Mrs Okai made this observation on Wednesday at the launch of the Ninth Edition of The Spelling Bee (TSB) in Ghana, organised by the Young Educators Foundation (YEF) on the theme: “The Importance of Curricular Activities in Education. ”She said such activities as TSB, which formed part of co-curricular activities, encouraged students to express their thoughts to contribute to ideas and build their self confidence, self esteem and self respect.
She noted that the GES had produced documents that would ensure that all schools followed the national agenda, adding that those materials, when utilised well, would bring about the needed qualities that would make children useful to themselves and society.

Mrs Okai encouraged all the participants in this year’s edition to work hard in order to excel since they had been trained in variety of English word formation process, word roots, spelling rules, combining forms, word origins, prefixes and suffixes.
She commended the organisers of the competition for the great job done over the years and urged them to strengthen the already existing collaboration with the GES in order to be able to tap the potentials of the students.
Mrs Eugenia Tachie-Menson, Country Director of YEF, said TSB, organised in Ghana over the past nine year, sought to improve the lives of children through literacy as well as champion the course of education.
She said the introduction of the concept received rejections from some heads of schools and parents but over the years the impression had changed positively.
She said currently, the contest had been able to impact on the lives of over 10,000 children, teachers, educators, and families. Mrs Tachie-Menson said the contest had an element of fun as a way of getting children to be interested in reading while broadening their vocabulary base and learning life skills such as confidence and critical thinking, which were not thought in the classroom. “The results of our method of learning have shown that children give off their best in a fun environment,” she added. She said participants from this year’s edition had been drawn from seven regions, 66 schools and comprised of 636 spellers across the country.
Mrs Tachie-Menson said the real point of TSB was to combine fun and friendly competition with academic challenges and called on the GES  consider making co-curricular activities such as TSB count in terms of the contact hours in schools.