Maravi

Culture of Reading

Culture of Reading
By Editor
Saturday September 22, 2007 [04:02]

The absence of a culture of reading should be a major concern to all who want to see our country move forward. The concerns being raised by Comrade KK on this score deserve serious attention from the government and other stakeholders. This is so because reading is one of the fundamental building blocks of learning. Becoming a skilled and adaptable reader enhances the chances of success at school and beyond. Reading is not just for school or examination purposes, it is for life.

Reading, in all its variety, is vital to our becoming better informed; having a better understanding of ourselves and others; and to our development as thoughtful, constructive contributors to a democratic and cohesive nation.

We shouldn't forget that leading world nations pride themselves on their promotion of reading. They see a high level of literacy as a major source of their competitiveness and social maturity.

The absence of a widespread culture of reading in our country acts as an effective barrier to our development and international competitiveness.

The economic and social health of our nation depends on building a literate nation, able to read widely for practical purposes and for pleasure. This means making the current generation more aware of the pleasure and importance of reading in daily life, and ensuring that they have the level of literacy skills required in modern society.

As things stand today, and as Comrade KK has correctly observed, we have a nation in which the majority can neither read nor write in any language, a nation in which the majority are completely illiterate - unable to read instructions on a medicine bottle or to complete a job application form without assistance.

And millions of our people are functionally illiterate - unable to function adequately in the modern world due to underdeveloped reading and writing skills. We also have a large number of people who are alliterate, able to read but who don't read. This is a major consequence of not having a culture of reading.

It is shocking that in a country of almost 12 million people, the total circulation of newspapers per day is hardly 50,000 copies. We are not saying this to market our newspapers and increase sales but to engage the whole nation in a dynamic effort to build a sustainable culture of reading and writing that also affirms Zambian languages, history, values and development.

There is need to work towards achieving a total national consciousness of the value and benefits of reading.

There is need also to engage all in the reading chain - writers, illustrators, publishers, printers, booksellers, teachers and librarians in support of this.

The corporate sector, civil society, churches and non-governmental organisations also need to be engaged to support and participate actively in the promotion of a culture of reading. Investment needs to be mobilised into a reading promotion initiative of such value to all stakeholders.

There have been some initiatives to promote a culture of reading but these have not succeeded.

These initiatives failed because there was no buy-in from government as a whole and there was a lack of investment of both material and human resources. There was no core government funding committed to creating a culture of reading. Everything, more or less, relied on voluntary labour, on reading activists.

These activists were expected to promote reading and book development on a voluntary basis. While voluntary labour is important and necessary and we do need to promote the spirit of voluntarism in the nation, an over-reliance on voluntarism leads to a massive under-evaluation of the labour of people in the reading and book sector.

People should not be expected to work as full-time volunteers at the expense of their own financial independence and wellbeing. And as volunteers become overworked and burnt out, they are likely to withdraw their labour at crucial moments. Therefore, there is need to invest into the labour of people in the promotion of a reading culture.

There is need to promote the publishing industry that has almost collapsed in our country. A flourishing publishing industry is one of the key ingredients of a vibrant national reading culture. And a culture of reading is inextricably linked with availability of books. It is therefore imperative that we reflect, as a nation, on the state of literature and publishing in our country.

Although the financial rewards in western countries with huge book markets are certainly greater, here it is not very profitable. And therefore incentives to encourage our writers to publish are needed.

We think it is a sad reflection on the literary and publishing community, our government and wealthy individuals in our country, that we are unable to mobilise resources to build and strengthen the publishing industry in Zambia.

A massive investment in improving access to books through public institutions such as schools and libraries is not a luxury but a matter of absolute urgency.

Clearly, books and libraries are not a developmental luxury but are essential, especially in our so-called information age where knowledge and information have acquired the materiality of capital and commodities, whose uneven accumulation dictates the wealth and poverty of communities.

In a country that is plagued by the HIV and AIDS epidemic, the absence of reading materials on nutrition, health and prevention of HIV and AIDS is truly alarming. Not enough materials are produced and those that are produced are not widely circulated.

We shouldn't also forget that increased investment in and production of books would generate much needed employment. We would have to rely less on book aid boxes sent from abroad. Well-meaning people spend considerable amounts of money sending books to us.

Those same resources would be of much greater benefit if they were used to buy books written by Zambians, published and printed in Zambia. And apart from jobs created in the publishing and printing industries, a flourishing book industry also contributes towards tourism.

There are people in the world who will visit a country on the basis of having read a book. Literary tourists are a niche market that should be seriously cultivated. Building a sustainable culture of reading and writing will also help to affirm Zambian languages, history, values and development.

We therefore need leaders like Comrade KK to lobby continuously for increased investment in language, literature and libraries. We need to develop a bold vision that can convince those that control our national purse that Zambia has potential in this sector.

There’s need to show our finance minister Ng'andu Magande, as he prepares his next budget, that the development of a flourishing publishing industry is not only good business sense, it is a pre-requisite to realising our dream for a more developed, prosperous and poverty-free Zambia.

It is therefore a duty of every one of us to struggle without respite for a nation of avid, life-long readers who read widely and who value Zambian literature and languages; for a government that vigorously promotes the value of reading at national, provincial, district and local levels; for an education system that integrates reading at the core of the curriculum, at all levels, and encourages reading for pleasure and life-long learning; for a flourishing writing and publishing industry to support the heightened demand for books and other reading materials from the education sector and from the general public; and for a strong library network backed by an equitable book distribution system that ensures that everyone has access to a wide range of reading material, regardless of economic status or geographical location.

We are accordingly appealing to minister Magande and his staff at the Ministry of Finance to seriously and deeply meditate and reflect on these issues as they try to pen down the next budget of our country.

We need to achieve a quantum leap in the culture of reading and the book chain.

Labels: BOOKS, EDITORIAL, KENNETH KAUNDA

posted by MrK @ 4:10 AM