Thirteen-year-old Fred Munezero is a P4 pupil at Groupe Scolaire Kinyinya in Gasabo District who likes reading children’s stories. When he doesn’t find enough books at school, his parents take time to visit local libraries during the weekends to get him more reading material.

"Our parents normally take my siblings and I to local libraries to read various books. This is not very frequent, but we gain a lot from this exposure,” he says.

Munezero, however, says many children miss out on adopting a reading culture early on due to a negative mindset, and, at times, illiteracy of their parents.

"As a result, some parents do not appreciate the value of taking their children to libraries to read children’s storybooks,” he says.

To affirm Munerezo’s concerns, Umuhoza Aimé, 12, a P5 pupil at Groupe Scolaire Kicukiro, says she lacks books and time to read from home because of too much domestic work.

The problem is compounded by the fact that some schools still do not have enough reading materials in Kinyarwanda and lack libraries to give children a chance to embrace the reading culture early.

Marie Georgette Nakure, the director of studies at Groupe Scolaire Kinyinya, for instance, says other than shortage of reading books, the school library is too small to even store books.

The school has primary and secondary sections, with 2,545 children in primary and 701 students in secondary, but Nakure says they can’t even provide 100 books for one class (especially in lower primary).

Stephen Mugisha, the chairman of Rwanda Publishers and Booksellers Union, says the first motivation is to avail books in Kinyarwanda, the language that children understand.

"Actually, even parents can afford these books that range from Rwf600 to Rwf2000. I don’t think it’s the cost hampering the reading culture because many parents spend a lot more in bars,” he says.

He says an early reading culture fosters life-long-learning, and enables children to grow into innovative citizens.

For Dr Joyce Musabe, the Head of the Curriculum and Pedagogical Materials Department at Rwanda Education Board (REB), an early reading culture gives a student a strong foundation for good performance in school later on.

"There is little they can do if they don’t know to read from the beginning because all knowledge is derived through reading, speaking, writing and listening. We teach these four skills to students from the lower level to make sure that they can master the rest,” she says.

"Many of the challenges come from the fact that some of the parents do not support itheir children at home, and they always put the blame on the shoulders of teachers expecting the school to do everything,” Musabe says.

She advises that parents should take the interest in helping in their children’s education by providing books at home, or buying other literature for students that they can read whenever not at school.

"The other challenge is that some parents do not know how to read themselves. I think that an innovative parent can help a student to learn how to read by simply asking them to read aloud for the parents,” Musabe advises.

Regarding the challenge of the lack of reading materials, she says, the Government is trying its best to make sure that they provide the materials, but emphasises that it’s everyone’s responsibility to promote an early reading culture.

A glimmer of hope

Musabe says one solution to lack of access to reading materials was a government an initiative to put mobile libraries in certain areas so that parents can borrow books for their children. There are 80 mobile libraries now across the country.

Catherine Uwimana, a book development and use coordinator in ‘Mureke Dusome’ project under Save the Children, says some improvement in early reading has been made in the last three years.

Uwimana says under ‘Mureke Dusome’, books have been distributed to 132 community libraries in Burera and Gicumbi districts, and their target is to distribute more books in 10 districts by 2017.

"We distribute books together with a carpet where children can sit while reading, as well as book shelves to ease storage,” says Uwimana. "Our target is to see that, by 2019, books are available in every school in the country.”

Currently, there are at least 233 reading book titles written for 0-9 years and among them 54 are dedicated to children abelow six years written by the present 12 local publishers since 2013.

Save the Children expects that, by 2020, approximately 1.6 million lower primary students will have the skills, support and materials needed to learn to read. Under this framework, Save the Children also expects to have about 1 million parents equipped enough to help their children develop the habit of reading at home.

It is also expected to have, by 2020, about 14,000 school and community leaders actively supporting children’s literacy and about 500 Kinyarwanda children’s book titles approved by REB across Rwanda.

Rwanda Education Board this year offered a total of 737,812 reading books to public schools (for both primary and secondary schools).