By Kate Obande
Abuja – The Egunec Education Support Fund (EESF), an NGO, has said that regular organization of spelling competition would enhance reading culture amongst students in the country.
Eberechukwu Ujam, Executive Director EESF made the remark in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Abuja.
Egunec Education Support Fund is a programee which is aimed at reducing the number of street children by sponsoring them through school.
Ujam said that such competitions will encourage the young ones to learn how to read and write more adding that youths no longer have interest in reading.
According to her, the social media is a major contributing factor to the decline in reading culture and students’ performance in examinations.
“ Since the emergence of social media, the young ones do not have interest in reading and writing any more, all they do is to concentrate on the internet.
“If you go to the internet, you see all manners of wrong spellings and abbreviations and it is affecting their spellings.
“So we want to enlighten and awaken their consciousness to the damage that is being done to English language through wrong spellings.’’
Ujam told NAN that as part of their efforts to enforce reading culture and promote good spellings, the organisation had concluded plans to organise a spelling bee competition in Abuja.
She said that the maiden edition of the competition would take place on Oct. 6 in Abuja with participants from both public and private secondary schools.
She explained that the focus was on secondary school students because their brains are sharp adding that it would be an annual event and would be expanded to the 36 states of the federation.
The Executive Director advised the government to collaborate and create enabling environment for NGOs in the education sector to carry out their development activities.
By Constance Athekame/controlled by Tukur Muntari.
