Reading is essential to a country’s development
Apr 21, 2010
READING is essential for the success of every society as it imparts knowledge. The ability to read is highly valued and important for social and economic advancement. Uganda has a large number of children whose educational concerns could be endangered because they do not read well enough to ensure u
By Rajiv Chowdhry
READING is essential for the success of every society as it imparts knowledge. The ability to read is highly valued and important for social and economic advancement. Uganda has a large number of children whose educational concerns could be endangered because they do not read well enough to ensure understanding and to meet the demands of an increasingly competitive economy.
The Universal Primary Education (UPE), though celebrated, is producing a number of underachievers estimated at between 15% and 20% of school-going children who fail to acquire basic skills at primary level and lag behind in secondary.
In 2001, for instance, 360,000 children sat the primary leaving examinations and of these 250,000 qualified for post-primary education. However, only 150,000 children were admitted into the 734 government-aided secondary schools and 29 technical and farm rural schools.
There is also a 57% drop-out rate in primary school and a 43% completion rate of both boys and girls. Despite having introduced UPE, the Government has not been able to provide scholastic materials, structures and an environment that promotes quality education.
According to the 2004 school census, the number of primary schools has increased over the years. For example, in 2004, there were 10,876 government aided schools, 1,521 private ones and 937 community schools.
In Uganda, 10 to 30% of the adult population has difficulty with basic reading, writing and numeric skills. Difficulties in reading originate from rising demand for literacy and limited education resources; the highest risk group being children.
The difficulty to read and understand can be prevented by building comprehension skills. This can be done by encouraging learners to read widely to build a knowledge base. Most children begin school with a positive attitude and expectations for success and by the end of primary level and increasingly thereafter, some children get dismayed.
Children from poor neighbourhoods, those with limited proficiency in English, children with hearing difficulties, those with pre-school language impairments and children whose parents have difficulty reading are particularly at risk of attending school with weaknesses and hence lag behind from the outset.
I recommend attention to ensuring high quality pre-school and kindergarten environments. The critical factor being in providing excellent reading instruction with necessary linguistic, cognitive and early literacy skills.
A full array of early reading should include, reading the alphabet, sight word, reading words by mapping speech sounds to parts of words so as to achieve fluency and understanding.
Good instruction is more important than dividing children in classes of the bright, fair performers and poor performers. A good literacy environment and effective instruction are a requirement to ensure all children succeed through school.
Each child needs to have enough study material and good teachers at pre-school and primary level. In addition, a teacher’s knowledge and experience needs to be up to scratch with the modern times.
It is important for us as a country to ensure teachers have access to the tools and knowledge required when conducting classes. As in every domain of learning, motivation is crucial; with teacher supervision, provision of ongoing guidance, support of mentorship programmes, reading difficulties can be prevented and our overall national literacy goal will eventually be achieved.
If bookshops can facilitate the above and improve reading in this country, even to a small extent, we would feel grateful that we would have achieved our objective.
The writer is the director of the Africa Text Book Centre
READING is essential for the success of every society as it imparts knowledge. The ability to read is highly valued and important for social and economic advancement. Uganda has a large number of children whose educational concerns could be endangered because they do not read well enough to ensure understanding and to meet the demands of an increasingly competitive economy.
The Universal Primary Education (UPE), though celebrated, is producing a number of underachievers estimated at between 15% and 20% of school-going children who fail to acquire basic skills at primary level and lag behind in secondary.
In 2001, for instance, 360,000 children sat the primary leaving examinations and of these 250,000 qualified for post-primary education. However, only 150,000 children were admitted into the 734 government-aided secondary schools and 29 technical and farm rural schools.
There is also a 57% drop-out rate in primary school and a 43% completion rate of both boys and girls. Despite having introduced UPE, the Government has not been able to provide scholastic materials, structures and an environment that promotes quality education.
According to the 2004 school census, the number of primary schools has increased over the years. For example, in 2004, there were 10,876 government aided schools, 1,521 private ones and 937 community schools.
In Uganda, 10 to 30% of the adult population has difficulty with basic reading, writing and numeric skills. Difficulties in reading originate from rising demand for literacy and limited education resources; the highest risk group being children.
The difficulty to read and understand can be prevented by building comprehension skills. This can be done by encouraging learners to read widely to build a knowledge base. Most children begin school with a positive attitude and expectations for success and by the end of primary level and increasingly thereafter, some children get dismayed.
Children from poor neighbourhoods, those with limited proficiency in English, children with hearing difficulties, those with pre-school language impairments and children whose parents have difficulty reading are particularly at risk of attending school with weaknesses and hence lag behind from the outset.
I recommend attention to ensuring high quality pre-school and kindergarten environments. The critical factor being in providing excellent reading instruction with necessary linguistic, cognitive and early literacy skills.
A full array of early reading should include, reading the alphabet, sight word, reading words by mapping speech sounds to parts of words so as to achieve fluency and understanding.
Good instruction is more important than dividing children in classes of the bright, fair performers and poor performers. A good literacy environment and effective instruction are a requirement to ensure all children succeed through school.
Each child needs to have enough study material and good teachers at pre-school and primary level. In addition, a teacher’s knowledge and experience needs to be up to scratch with the modern times.
It is important for us as a country to ensure teachers have access to the tools and knowledge required when conducting classes. As in every domain of learning, motivation is crucial; with teacher supervision, provision of ongoing guidance, support of mentorship programmes, reading difficulties can be prevented and our overall national literacy goal will eventually be achieved.
If bookshops can facilitate the above and improve reading in this country, even to a small extent, we would feel grateful that we would have achieved our objective.
The writer is the director of the Africa Text Book Centre