Delta State Commissioner for Secondary Education, Mrs. Rose Ezewu has assured the Nigerian Copyright Commission of her Ministry's partnership in tackling book piracy in the secondary school education system.
Ezewu gave the assurance when the Coordinator of NCC in charge of Delta and Anambra States, Mr. Gabriel Anikwem paid her a courtesy visit.
Represented by the Functioning Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education, Mr. Daniel Akiri, the Commissioner said that the book review, carried out by the Ministry in every three years was part of strategies to eradicate piracy and enrich the school curriculum.
She said that books from any author that should be used in schools in the state must be of high quality, adding that pirated books were usually of low quality.
Earlier, Mr. Anikwem told the Commissioner that they were in the Ministry to seek for partnership to champion the campaign against piracy, saying that it was unfortunate that many people prefer to patronize pirated books.
Anikwem asserted that Delta State has all the tools with which to impact knowledge, even as he mentioned that his organization had been going round to sensitize people, especially students to shun pirated but always opt for original books .
In their separate remarks, the Director of Examinations in the Ministry, Mrs. Clementina Ojumah and her counterpart in charge of the Education Resource Centre (ERC), Mrs. Eguono Temiagin as well as the Director of Administration, Iniovosa Okakwu-Patience said that most individuals often patronize pirated books because their prices were relatively cheaper.
Ojumah, however, implored authors to have a seal that would enable people to identify the originality of their books, stressing that the Department of Education Resource Centre of the Ministry should organize a book fair and invite officials of NCC to participate and give lectures and advice to the authors that would be present in the book fair.
The Director of Examinations frowned at some authors for the poor quality of printing on books, just as she said that most of them needed to be enlightened to do quality work.
Speaking further, Mrs. Temiagin recalled that last year her department had planned to organize book fair in the three Senatorial Districts where they intended to invite original authors to come with their books to the book fair in order to reduce piracy .
Temiagin, who explained that high cost of printing was already affecting the purchase of good books , reiterated that the book fair was the only way to bring the authors to come and sell their books and when sustained , would play critical role in mitigating piracy.
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