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Mr Guy Amarteifio, Volta Regional Director, Ghana Library Authority (GhLA) has called on parents and students to utilise the many online platforms available to develop their academic and professional skills in the wake of COVID-19.

He said as part of GhLA Digital Agenda, the ‘Ghana Library App’ was timely created in 2019 to make reading and learning easily accessible through technology.

The Regional Director said the GhLA application was readily available for toddlers and adults, stocked with over 5,000 eBooks comprising local, international fiction and non-fiction materials, and appealed to parents to assist their children to take advantage of the platform.

Mr Amateifio said this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency about the relevance of GhLA in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic, saying the mandate of the Authority was critical now than ever.

He said the GhLA was organising a "national short story" writing challenge for age nine to 18 pupils and students, which comes in two categories, for juniors between nine and 12 and 13 to 18 for seniors with prizes ranging from GH¢1,000, GH¢500 and GH¢300 for first, second and third positions.

Mr Amarteifio said the purpose was to allow children to demonstrate writing skills, inspire young writers to acquire critical thinking skills, and especially promote children content through the publication of children write-ups with winning stories gaining entry onto the GhLA application.

He said by the close of May, only seven and 47 users registered with the GhLA App in the Oti and Volta Regions respectively, and appealed to people in the two regions to register to become active participants of the free online materials.

Mr Amarteifio said GhLA was partnering with radio stations to create awareness on the use of its online platform for the citizenry to acquire knowledge and called for greater participation.

The Regional Director said online platforms such as UDEMY, a US-based online learning platform with more than 50 million students’ populations worldwide with 57,000 institutions teaching different courses in over 65 languages were available.

He said the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), an intergovernmental organisation solely concerned with the promotion of the development of distance education and open learning had offered 1,000 scholarships and adding another 1,400 under a deal with the GhLA.

Mr Amarteifio said again Coursera Inc, a renowned for-profit online educational technology, which offers students access to Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), specialisation, and degrees had given 1,000 scholarships to the country and asked the youth to take advantage of the Programmes.

Ghana Library Authority, an agency under the Ministry of Education is mandated by Act 327 of 1970 to establish, equip, maintain, and manage public libraries in Ghana.

The vision of the GhLA is to connect every Ghanaian to knowledge resources with a compelling mission to be a leading knowledge services hub in the sub-region by connecting and radically improve literacy and development outcomes which transform lives and communities.

Its services include; research support, library materials lending, children’s library services, extension services, cataloging and processing, bindery services, technology support services, and facility rental for meetings, workshops, and conferences.

Meanwhile, work on the Volta Regional Library project said to be 85 percent complete has stalled.

Mr Amarteifio said the Regional Coordinating Council was working to upscale negotiations with the contractor for parts of the building to be made available to the Authority, currently managing a makeshift structure belonging to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Ho Bankoe.