Reading is a culture like any other. It is nurtured, groomed, fostered and practiced. Reading is the art of interpretation, comprehension and analysis or making sense out of a written piece. 

The poor readers say reading is an affair for the teachers and students. Professors and university lecturers are other people that should read, so the ideology goes.

However, this is a great misconception of facts about reading.

Reading is done by all that need more information, knowledge, experience, ideas …

‘All knowledge is found in books’ the Minister of Education once remarked. The statement holds a lot of truth. People who have found time to write and their written pieces have been published put out to libraries for the readers, have changed societies.

Revolutionary leaders have either been inspired by the books they have read on revolutionary ideas or articles similar to that.

Great scientists have consulted written material to advance their theories. Can anyone now doubt the belief that knowledge is found in books?

Every time I read a novel, an article, a pamphlet, a text book, a magazine, even a newspaper, I gain a new thing. One may not know that they have gained anything but surely they have gained new information, vocabulary, diction, idiom, science etc.    

Unfortunately, in our schools, the reading culture is at its lowest. Ranging from Head teachers, Director of Studies, those in charge of discipline, and as well as teachers.

This pandemic is then transferred to the students.  As parents, we should not leave it to the teachers; we should instead supplement each other for the better of our children.

Steven Mugisha, the founder and Chairman of RWABODI in one of his Sunday Times articles says, a reading parent, a reading child, a reading nation.

They also say that what you want your country to look like in the future; put it in schools, (for the young generation).

A good teacher not only strives to inculcate facts in the minds of the learners, more importantly he tries to help them develop values and ethics and a sense of what being a human being means .

It is through reading that we appreciate other people’s ideas or disapprove them and put up our own ideas to challenge or support the ideas of fellow writers.

In this way, we gain knowledge, share ideas and learn more. Every day is a learning day and learning ceases only when the learner dies.

It is unfortunate however, that our society is lagging behind in this area and we are missing out on a number of things. We have embraced the East African Community Federation where our country is a member; we must embrace any good practices that are done by our counterparts.

Reading is one of the essential things that we need to do. The other day, our Universities adopted the EAC academic calendar where the academic year begins in September and ends in June of each year.

This means that students from our Universities can cross to any University in the region and continue their studies without losing a year or anything. But they have to be up to the standards to be able to compete favourably with the students in the University where they go.

Otherwise they will not graduate with good grades or more so they will take more years to graduate due to retakes.

As we endeavour to favourably compete in doing business, we should also take along with it other good cultures like the reading culture by all; the parents, the teachers and the students/children.

There is a Kinyarwanda proverb; utaganiriye na se ntamenya icyo sekuru yasize avuze literally meaning (he who never converses with the dad never knows what the grandpa said).

He, who never reads, never knows much that is in the books. Yes, we are Africans but we are a nation on the move, a nation that has overcome bigger challenges, let’s not be victims of the western saying "if you want to hide something from an African, put it in a book”.

Let’s read and enlighten our society, our families and our children for a better future of an informed populace.

intarepaul@yahoo.com
The writer is an Educationist