Why Rwandans should embrace a reading culture

It is now official. That the long-awaited Kigali Public Library has opened its doors and will be officially opened come June this year. This is welcome news to the Kigali residents and Rwandan people in general. The coming of Kigali Library should contribute significantly to the much talked about reading culture which is low by regional and international standards. Rwanda and many African countries have a rich oral culture but lack a reading culture. We, therefore, qualify to be a ‘literary desert’ which we share with many of our brothers and sisters from across the continent of Africa. Measures to contain the ‘literary desert’ must be deployed urgently. The challenge comes to the content which plays a very important role in informing our reading culture. We need books and other reading materials that function as mirrors and windows. This is especially critically important for children. Our writers and researchers need to produce local content that we seriously lack. In our schools and colleges we hardly have any mirrors and our windows frequently use foreign material and the Internet sources. It is high time we started on the exercise of re-examining our education system. When we talk or write about encouraging a reading culture, we should not necessarily mean the culture of reading in English or French both of which are languages that students rarely use outside the classroom at least for most of the rural students. Our system of education is dominated by examinations which play a considerable role in deciding students’ future. Results obtained on the said examinations determine whether or not the student can move on to the next grade, to high school, or to post-secondary education. If and when the results are not high enough, the student is almost always left in limbo and without options.When students converse with each other, both in class and outside instructional times, they very rarely use English or French. They use Kinyarwanda, their mother tongue. English or French is, therefore, seen in very pragmatic times and is used to obtain an education and write examinations and earn diplomas and degrees that will provide future employment in the increasingly competitive job market. On the other hand, a reading culture in Rwanda would not only recognise but have a strong appreciation for Rwandan writing and would go a long way in helping us learn more about ourselves as Rwandans. If reading is a source of pleasure, it is also a source of power and the ability to be a critical thinker. The idea that a book can cause a reader to question what they know or gain a new perspective is very powerful. Finally, a reading culture provides for and supports life-long reading through book clubs, libraries and other fora or platforms that provide a rich diversity of reading materials. My general understanding of the basis of a reading culture is the understanding and appreciation of the written word. We are by and large an oral society. Rwanda would like to be an information society as par our Vision 2020. In order to create a reading culture, a change of attitude, in fact a paradigm shift has to take place. As a culture, we need to embrace the place of reading in our personal lives and make it a priority in civil society and in schools. Reading is essential to the well being and actually happiness of an individual and indeed to that person’s capacity to act as a citizen. A reading culture begins far before a child can read words on a page. To establish a reading culture in Rwanda, therefore, we need to start from the idea that reading is one of the most pleasurable things one can do and build from there. It may sound surprising but it is true that our most educated people are not necessarily the most well read. What we can confirm is that they took more examinations and at the end acquired more papers. This is why sometimes you may discover that the employer who professes to be an expert in a particular field is far less informed and experienced than someone who may be more read in the business the said employer claims to be the expert.In the final analysis, the purpose of fostering and nurturing a reading culture should be premised on two things: Firstly, is to enjoy the craftsmanship of wordsmiths and, secondly, to hope to make some sense out of the nonsensical life that we go through on a daily basis – the trials and tribulations of life, the hopes and triumphs and the general vicissitudes of life. It is my hope that the new Kigali Public Library will make a major contribution towards the improvement of our lives through nurturing a reading culture and respect for the written word! And to our young generation, I am hopeful that the Library will be of great interest to them and they could invest some precious time away from the exciting and sometimes captivating issues of the pop and porn culture that is so much in vogue.

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Why Rwandans should embrace a reading culture