World Book Day: Eminentville School Moves to Encourage Writing, Documentation

As the international community marks World Book Day, Eminentville School, Port Harcourt, Rivers State has commemorated the day with emphasis on the promotion of writing and documentation.

World Book Day, an event celebrated yearly on April 23 is a day set aside by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation to promote reading, publishing and copyright.

Eminentville School management chose to celebrate the event last Saturday to enable parents and laureates watch performances by their children and wards on achievements by the school.

Speaking at the event, Manager of the school, Dr. Chinyere Amaewhule said it has become important to encourage children to read and write to improve the reading culture in the society.

She said the school had to celebrate the World Book and Copyright Day yearly as its contribution to reviving the dying reading culture in the nation and to build a properly enlightened and educated society.

According to her, the school also included in its programme the unveiling of Eminentville School’s anthology, creativity on the spot, quiz on World Book Day and book review, epic drama, tautology and pronunciation, among other activities.

The Head Teacher, Mrs. Doris Owuso also noted that the art of reading and writing has improved the children’s critical reasoning skills.

“It has given them a broad horizon in the different forms of writing and the processes involved in writing.”

To motivate the students on reading and focus on academics for a successful future, Prof. Okey Onuchukwu of the Department of Economics, University of Port Harcourt, commended the school management for providing environment and facilities that are conducive, saying that those would enhance the children’s reading ability.

“The kind of environment and facilities we have here are conducive for learning. The students are acting very intelligent because they are being taught properly.

“Coming to today’s event, it is obvious we keep reminding our people of the importance of reading and writing because that will really help us and make the society grow. All the things we are saying are ideas that are generated and put down by people. We read them to expand it and then adopt them to suit our purpose, and that is the only way society grows.

“So, if you don’t write and document, it means some of those ideas will go into extinction and there will be nothing to build upon.”

Parents at the event commended the management of the school for the extra effort to keep the children current in academics, especially the reading and writing culture in them.

A parent said: “I want to commend the management of the school for their educational standard. Everything done here is excellent, it is one of its kind because in today’s society people hardly read. Imbibing this culture in these children will go a long way with them in the future. If they continue with this standard, in the nearest future they will be the best in Port Harcourt.”

Some students who spoke with THISDAY expressed delight that they are part of the future that will transform the society through the knowledge and academic values they will gather from the school.
Christabelle, a level 10 pupil said: “We are live at the World Book Day celebration to create awareness on how books impact on our lives. We are also using this as a medium to express ourselves in many ways.”

Mario Azimba, a level eight pupil of the school also said “reading and writing has helped me more in internal and external competitions as well as school examinations. Reading habit expands my scope of knowledge in everything I come across.”