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Tuesday, January 26, 2010
development: Value of reading -Syed Mohammad Ali
Teachers hardly encourage reading habits in students and lay no foundation at the primary and secondary level for inculcating the habit of reading books. University libraries are largely subjected to neglect
A sound education is a basic human right and a crucial asset for overcoming poverty, improving health, and reducing human rights abuses. It is also a prerequisite for full citizenship and participation in democracy and society. Conversely, an illiterate person is less effective in securing survival in the current world, or to provide for one's family effectively. It has been estimated that every two-percentage point increase in the literacy rate of a country adds one year to the life expectancy of its people.
Literacy, in all its forms, plays a fundamental role in positive development through continued interaction between thoughts and actions. This creates a critical understanding of major contemporary problems and social changes and the ability to play an active part in the progress of societies.
Despite these recognised merits, it is unfortunate that countries like our own continue to lag behind in terms of providing education to their citizens. Besides lagging behind in net primary-age enrolment and adult literacy rates in comparison to other South Asian countries, the quality of education in Pakistan also leaves much to be desired. Government-run schools have failed miserably in producing an educated populace. While the last two decades have seen an explosion of private schools, whether the presence of these additional schools is able to provide quality education remains a debatable question.
Some years ago, the UN's Human Development Report cited the estimation of less than one-third of adult women have a functional reading ability. Perhaps this explains why so little stress is placed on the importance of reading in the average households in our country.
Varied educational theories stress the need of engaging young minds in reading efforts to enable their development at later stages of learning. The more a child is exposed to discovering the world around through the medium of reading, the more this child will grow up with a love for learning. The developed world has realised the utility of doing so and regularly invests in producing and publishing varied books for children.
It is unfortunate that a civilisation that flourished in the subcontinent and left a legacy of scholarship and books is now bereft of these necessary accomplishments. The 17th century library at Agra had nearly 25,000 volumes at a time when books had to be transcribed by hand. But the Mughals shunned the printing press brought in by the Europeans and the value of literary pursuits began to wane with the decline of the Mughal Empire itself. Madrassa education correspondingly became increasingly myopic. After partition, India has managed to launch concerted drives towards not only achieving literacy, it has also managed to establish and preserve its libraries across its many states. But Pakistan's efforts in this context leave much to be desired.
Although newspapers do have a wide circulation in the Urdu language across our nation, especially in provinces like Sindh, and the electronic media has made its presence felt rather quickly as well, just reading books for the sake of pleasure or to undertake serious research does not seem to be considered a priority.
Besides a handful of libraries in major cities like the Liaquat National Memorial Library in Karachi or the National Library of Pakistan at Islamabad, which were put up in the past two decades or so, not much effort has been made to establish a library culture in the country. In Lahore, except for the Quaid-i-Azam Library, most of the other public libraries continue to suffer from negligence, including the pre-partition Punjab Public Library, which had been established in 1884.
Conversely, even a modest library in a small town or city of a developed society has not only more resources but also more visitors than any of our major libraries. But no library can be termed worth the investment if it is not being frequented regularly. It is not only in libraries that reading takes place in more advanced and literate societies. At any waiting area, of a train or bus station, or the airports, and even outside doctors' clinics, it is common to see ordinary people pull out a book to help pass the time. In our country however, seeing someone with a book is a rare sight indeed.
While the need for emphasising a reading culture in a country like our own is imperative to help increase public awareness and to provide a solid educational grounding to children, there is little evidence of sufficient efforts being made on the ground for this purpose. There are small-scale civil society initiatives by NGOs like Alif Laila Book Bus Society in Lahore for instance, which realised the need for inculcating children's interest in reading by setting up the first children's library in the city some 30 years ago. The Alif Laila Book Bus is also taken out in different parts of the city to make the magic of books accessible to children who have had such little exposure. But such individual efforts alone are not sufficient to meet the vast unmet need.
While there are libraries in the better endowed secondary and higher secondary government schools, there are no library periods, and these library sources are often not updated. Government schools hardly encourage the use of supplemental reading, instead preferring to focus on prescribed textbooks to ensure reasonable results. Our examination system also relies on testing rote learning instead of comprehension and creativity. Teachers hardly encourage reading habits in students and lay no foundation at the primary and secondary level for inculcating the habit of reading books. University libraries are largely subjected to neglect. Except in a handful of leading private universities, professors do not commonly emphasise the need for literature reviews at the higher educational levels, something that would be unthinkable in academic institutions abroad.
While the educational policy makers are yet to seriously emphasise the value of reading, it is encouraging to note that entities like Alif Laila have decided to launch a wider campaign to focus the nation's attention on reading books. This campaign aims to promote the need for public libraries, turn media attention to the value of reading, and to secure the endorsement of reading by celebrities, political and religious leaders. Moreover, an effort is going to be made to encourage children's participation in book collection and book donation drives. Such efforts deserve more attention from not only our politicians and decision makers, but also from discerning members of the general public, including school heads, teachers, other civil society actors and the corporate sector, so as to help make this much needed but neglected effort achieve the required momentum and scale.
The writer is a researcher. He can be contacted at ali@policy.hu
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