Importance and challenges of reading culture in Rwanda

Culture, in the anthropological sense, can be thought of as “how a group of people do things,” how they greet one another and communicate, how they dress, eat, work and play. On the other hand, reading can be defined as the process of recognizing written or printed words and understanding their meaning. Therefore, a reading culture can be defined as how a group of people (parents, teachers and society at large) perceive the importance of reading and as such work towards inculcating the values of reading. Accordingly, a reading culture can best be explained as a learned practice of seeking knowledge, information or entertainment through the written word. Why should a culture of reading be our concern? To answer this question, one does not need an advanced dictionary or an encyclopedia, but rather a group of words put together will make us understand that functional literacy empowers a people with the knowledge and skills required for tackling the causes and effects of poverty such as unemployment,environmental degradation, hunger and diseases among other concerns. In addition, to emphasize the importance of the need for developing the culture of reading in Rwanda today, we shall borrow from; Francis Bacon (1561-1626), the English Philosopher who once asserted that ‘reading maketh a full man, speaking...a ready man, and Writing maketh him exact.’ This assertion has never been proved otherwise. Great readers have always made great writers as history, autobiographies and biographies of great men and women have taught us. These words were lingering in my mind on 28th –January-2011, as we were interviewing some teachers in one of the schools in Kigali. It all emanated from the general questions we were asking the candidates. The question was ‘briefly tell us the benefits of Rwanda joining East African Community’. None, of the candidates was able to convince the members of the panel…..they were all beating around the bush! This would not have been much of a problem, had it not been the fact that these were teachers who were going to teach Rwandan Children! The common sense dictates that you cannot give what you don’t have. This scenario raised a lot of arguments amongst the members of the panel, but we all came up with one conclusion- our candidates had limited exposure and limited knowledge outside their respective areas of specialization! Reason? Our Education system emphasizes on reading to pass exams! ….see we are made to read/ cram only materials necessary to pass exams…we finally get graduates who know too much useless theories, but do not even know how to apply it because they don’t know anything about what is happening in the world around them. Or they can’t relate theories learnt at school with real life experience.Who is responsible for developing the culture of Reading? Perhaps there are many answers to this question, but to the best of my understanding, if we are to develop and maintain a reading culture in our society; there must be a strong collaboration and partnership amongst teachers, parents, private sector, governments and members of the civil society organizations. To address this question, I have tried to apportion responsibilities among the mentioned stakeholders towards promoting the culture of reading as follows; The ministry of Education needs to emphasize the need for developing the culture of reading as early as possible. For example, there should be a reading hour/ library hour on the schools time table. This includes visiting the library and learners choosing what they want to read. For schools that do not have libraries this activity can be carried out in students respective classrooms. In order to emphasize the importance and value of reading, the ministry of Education should create a book week festival on its school calendar where activities like debates, reading , drama, cultural galas and other inter school events could be held. Also the ministry of Education and other stakeholders need to encourage local associations, for example of teachers, writers and librarians such associations play a leading role towards enhancing Education for excellence. This will not only improve on our quality of education, but will create a generation of Rwandans who are free and creative thinkers.Teachers, have a pivotal role in helping children to develop and maintain a positive attitude towards learning and literacy. Motivated readers read more, use more complex cognitive strategies, and thus become better readers. To motivate children to read, classroom teachers should; demonstrate a passion for reading and act as model readers for their students. Teachers should know how children perceive the value of reading, and aim to enhance the perceived value by linking reading with the childrens own interests and goals. Also, teachers should know how children perceive their own ability as readers and support them in developing a positive self-image, by having them work with texts that are at their current reading level and by providing them with enough time to complete their reading tasks as well as making learning meaningful, taking into account the age, interests, and needs of children. In addition teachers should provide a rich and varied literacy environment that includes interesting reading materials including developing these reading materials themselves. More so, teachers should provide opportunities for children to choose their own reading material and develop a sense of control over the reading process as well as providing opportunities for discussion, teamwork, and other social interactions that make reading interesting and fun. Finally, teachers should integrate reading into other activities to show that it is an essential, everyday skill with practical value which focuses on the internal reward of personal satisfaction and the achievement of goals that matter to the individual child/person. Civil society organizations; there is need for both local and international NGOs to intervene in the Education sector to complement government efforts towards enhancing the quality of Education. We need the creation of vibrant Associations of writers, readers, librarians, booksellers among others.The private sector, these profit oriented organizations should have a direct role towards enhancing the quality of education in communities in which they operate. They should come up with sponsorship programs like interschool debates, building school and community libraries, donating books to schools in their corporate social responsibilities.Challenges of developing a culture of reading: Although there are various problems that threaten the developing and maintaining of the culture of reading especially in schools today. Some of the challenges do stand out and these include the following; the environment we live in, our mind set and general attitudes towards reading. For example, how often do parents or teachers take time to read for their children…if you don’t read for your child he/she will not read for his children because you can’t give what you don’t have! So, the cycle will go on and on ‘Tell me and I will forget, Show me, and I may not remember, involve me and I will understand!’ I love this Swahili saying that ‘mtoto wa nyoka ni nyoka, and the English say that readers beget readers and that a reading parent gets a reading child!’ My rhetoric question is, as parents and teachers how often do we model to our children when it comes to building a culture of reading? Many people barely read even newspapers, preferring instead to receive their information through the television and the radio which sometimes provide little information that we need. The trouble of being born in the television age is that it has discouraged concentration of the mind and encouraged serial, kaleidoscopic exposure. Its variety becomes narcotic, not a stimulus; you consume not what you choose and when, but when they choose and what they choose to reveal to you. So our generation today is distracted by the fall outs from technological innovation in the world which has aggravated our non-existent reading habits or practices. Rather than reading a good novel or biography, the children may prefer playing cards, computer games or indulge in some other pastime outside reading. As already mentioned above, parents and teachers need to lead by example, our students need to see us models. Contrary, to this we don’t normally do it and we leave children and our students concentrating on routines of academic course books which are at times monotonous and boring. We also forget that there is a great relationship between reading and high academic performance!All in all, to address the challenges of poor reading habits that are deeply rooted in us and have plagued our society, our children have to be trained at the earliest age to read well. This means access to a wide variety of quality books in their homes, schools, and building public libraries and set up programs that encourage reading for pleasure — because the surefire way to develop a reading culture is by making reading a habit, after all we learn reading by reading!Doing so will ensure that our upcoming generation and those after us will be prepared for any challenges that lie ahead. After all, you can’t go wrong with a generation of good readers because they will make great leaders! Reading is essential because books are the key to the world - both the real world and fantasy worlds. Let us beat the notion that if you want to hide anything from an Africa ‘put it in a book!’ The author is an educationist and founder of: Rwanda Book Development Initiative. rwabodirwanda@yahoo.com