HELP YOUTH TO ACQUIRE MULTI-SKILLS — AWAL (SPREAD)

THE Managing Director of the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL), Mr Ibrahim Awal, has called on stakeholders in the book industry to help the youth to acquire the needed skills to enable them to contribute to the country’s sustainable development.
He said since human resource development was an essential requirement for accelerated development, “it behoves stakeholders such as educational institutions, employers and parents to equip the youth with adequate skills and knowledge for that purpose”.
He said it was for that reason that the GCGL had partnered a number of organisations, including EPP Books, Plan Ghana and Standard Chartered Bank Limited, to make the Junior Graphic a youth-oriented newspaper published and made accessible and affordable to children.
Mr Awal was speaking in Accra on Monday at the launch of Encyclopaedia Britannica and the introduction of EPP Books Limited as sole agents for Ghana.
He lauded the partnership between EPP Books and Encyclopaedia Britannica, saying it would help improve the knowledge base of Ghanaians.
The managing director said the GCGL had been involved in a programme to inculcate the reading habit in the youth through its range of products, especially the Junior Graphic, stressing that the book industry ought to unite to champion its positive objectives, which are to educate and inform.
Mrs Joyce Boeh-Ocansey, the General Manager of EPP Books, said EPP and the National Council for Tertiary Education, undertook a national project in 2008 and supplied 110 tertiary institutions in the country with the full set of Encyclopaedia Britannica.
She said because of the success of the first national project, the publishers and the Ministry of Education had initiated moves to sign the second phase of the project to supply second-cycle institutions with books to equip their libraries.
Mr Ian Grant, the Managing Director of Encyclopaedia Britannica, said plans were ongoing to publish Encyclopaedia of West Africa, which would be devoted solely to the provision of knowledge on issues pertaining to the sub-region.
Ms Joyce Aryee, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Mines, who chaired the programme, appealed to the youth to acquire the habit of reading, since the Internet alone could not make them all-round educated people in the globalised world.