Junior Graphic turns 16
The Junior Graphic, the favourite newspaper for schoolchildren in the country, will, on Tuesday, September 6, 2016, be 16 years.
The paper, which first appeared on the newstands on September 6, 2000 with the motto: ‘To serve the youth of Ghana’, has, through columns such as Teen Chat, Riddles, Jokes, Poems and Short Story, Auntie Betty and Rack Your Brain, presented children with both educative and fun-laden materials.
The Rack Your Brain column, for instance, has been very helpful to junior high school (JHS) students, especially candidates preparing for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) with questions and answers, as well as reports from the chief examiner of both the BECE and the WASSCE.
The Auntie Betty page, which is the favourite of most readers, serves as a means to address the sexual reproductive health issues of adolescents and guide them to make good choices during their teen years.
The paper has also organised numerous competitions, including its flagship programme, the National Junior Graphic Spelling Competition, the National Junior Graphic Essay Competition and various vacation promotions to engage readers during the school year and on vacations.
Currently, through its wide readership, it has established fan clubs with large memberships in basic schools across the country.
Ms Adolphine Ama Segbedeku, the Chief Executive Officer of Besorah Creative, who started reading the paper when it was first published, shared her experiences about how reading the Junior Graphic had impacted her life:
“From Maths and Science quizzes to puzzles, jokes and birthday pages, reading the Junior Graphic has really had an impact on my life. I remember back in 2003 some of my mates sent copies of the Junior Graphic to class. We all sat around the paper and tried to solve some of the questions that had been published, as well as the puzzles. We really loved the lyrics of songs published which helped us to learn most of Westlife’s songs.”
Ms Segbedeku confessed that she felt really proud when, years later after she had completed school, she found herself designing some of the pages of the Junior Graphic while she worked as a national service person at the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL).
She commended the GCGL, publishers of the Junior Graphic, for coming out with a newspaper that championed the cause of children and exposed readers to a wide variety of materials.
Grace Nyame, a student of the University of Ghana, who also used to be an avid reader and contributor to the paper in her primary school days, said reading articles written by other children in the paper helped her to learn various approaches to writing.
She said later when her articles were also published in the Junior Graphic, it raised her image in her school to the extent that her teachers encouraged other students to also read and contribute articles to the paper.