Minister of Education, Science, Vocational Training and Early Education John Phiri today launched the “Lets Read Zambia” national mobilization campaign.
Dr. Phiri has since called on the private sector and the general public to partner with government in supporting the development of a reading culture among Zambians.
He said government should not be left alone to address the poor reading culture in the country hence the need for cooperating partners and parents to join hands in reversing the culture.
He said the “Lets Read Zambia” mobilization campaign aims at encouraging parents to take passionate interest in the education of their children as this will help them (parents) to understand the challenges government schools were faced with in providing quality education.
The minister reiterated that the campaign seeks to encourage local businesses to partner with its schools in stocking libraries with books and other educational materials so as to support the provision of quality education.
Meanwhile, Dr. Phiri has said government was making steady progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) number two on primary school enrolment and completion.
Dr. Phiri further disclosed that Zambia’s enrollment rate stood 97 percent.
The minister said this was contained in the latest 2013 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report.
He expressed happiness and described the 97 percent enrollment level as impressive.
However, Dr. Phiri said serious concerns remain on the quality of education being offered by government schools.
Meanwhile, Education Permanent Secretary Chishimba Nkosha said the poor reading culture in Zambia was alarming.
Mr. Nkosha therefore implored stakeholders to take advantage of the “Let’s Read Zambia” campaign to contribute towards improving the reading culture among learners.
And Total Zambia Managing Director Stephen Lapauw said the energy firm was delighted to partner with government in supporting the development of the reading culture among school going children.
Mr. Lapauw disclosed that Total has so far distributed 150 mobile library boxes to community schools in a bid to enhance the reading culture among learners.
Speaking at the same function, United States Embassy Charge d’ Affaires David Young said concerted efforts were needed to address the alarming 80 percent statistics of children who cannot read in their early grades.
Mr. Young said the United States was ready to work with government in improving the quality of education in Zambia
He stressed that the United States government will continue to render unwavering support to the Ministry of Education so that every Zambian child can develop the skills of reading and writing.
Very good job, Zambians dont know the benefits of reading, take a look athow bloggers respond in commenting without reading, one or two persons have even called me confused and writting alot of “crap” without even reading my entire post. You just know that someone didnt even take time to read from the manner they will respond to your comment for if they do, you would tell the quality in their comment. Lets hope parents can read to their young children as well for it gets better and alot easier when they begin whilst still young.
The extent to or by which the quality of education has dropped in Zambia is so worrying. The downside of technology in part has been the advent of the internet and cellular phones that have contributed to people’s general laziness to read and the broken SMS English. Government also needs to pay particular attention to detail at each level of schooling first by separating basic education from higher education as different ministries, and then improving the quality of teacher training programmes that has also deteriorated over the years. As we encourage the use of computers and iPads in schools, it remains important for teachers to give some notes on the chalk board so that students’ writing skills can improve by copying notes from the board – today’s handwritings are just horrible!!!
In our school days we understood the importance and use of the English dictionary, not only as a means of knowing the MEANING of WORDS, but also how to PRONOUNCE and USE them in SENTENCES in VARIOUS ways. This is KEY in a READER’S ability to UNDERSTAND what they READ. Their are so many teachers today who do not know these things and can therefore NOT teach them! Our earlier school system respected the fact that any and very subject would be taught in a LANGUAGE, making it critical for a leaner’s knowledge of the language to be good. I understand the argument about about mother tongue education but still argue that we’re NOT READY for it. We were better students in our days EVEN NOT BENEFITTING FROM THE PRIVELEGE being taught in a mother tongue! Our languages need some refining for…
SORRY, I meant “… THERE are… and not THEIR are…”
Our leaders should take a lead. I doubt if our MPs read anything else apart from post headlines.
In some parts of this world, at all times some has a book to read, while our Zambians, hmmm either they chasing payments(i doubt if they even know what is written in the payment vouches), drinking, SMS girlfriends or ku plot.
Read at least two books in a week. Anything………
Where do I donate books will shipping costs be refunded I love this campaign
Heading should be ” TUBELENGE MUKWAI” .Let read when you are taking away the chance for children to start reading English at an early age.
I love your passion to promoting reading. You can donate books to Choma District Education Board. We have trained teacher librarians for every primary school in the District, 68 0f the 97 primary schools and 4 of the 23 community schools have set school libraries and we have developed a mobile library concept to support schools that are unable to create library space.
You want to donate books written in which language?? These ‘mad’ people are talking about reading in Chichewa, Bemba, Luvale and bla,bla,bla….Total madness!
The first ones should be zambian engineers who cant read and apply what they learnt from university. Doing work based on the old theories no discoveries, standards mention them. Rubbish indeed , let them start reading apply ideas and not he paid on laziness of checking files. Nooooo
This campaign should address both provision of reading materials and construction of reading rooms (libraries) in schools. At present most schools don’t have any extra rooms to convert into libraries and sadly donated books remain packed in boxes for years.
Very sad that books are there pack not being used.
It is long overdew.The system has committed has already distruction of many Zambians that we need vigorous concerted efforts to overcome the unprecedented illiteracy in our country. lt was disheartenning to discover that only 4 women knew how to ..
Sorry,l ment the system has already committed mass distruction to many Zambians. Yes,l was saying only four women out of over four hundred women could read and write.These are that attended a family planning meeting in Chawama ,LK.lt was last week.
For a second I thought the sorry was for “Overdue.”
MOE, among the measures that are ment to curb the culture of not reading please let there be limited numbers of learners so as to promote quality.lt is total lunacy and frustrating to give a teacher 80 learners.Please something must be done quickly.
I thought this was to encourage us to read the DRAFT constitution. It’s has very good proposals on impeaching the Prez on medical grounds.
@6.1 ,thank for yo correction.
Thanks
it feels good to me as an information manager to see how the government have continued to recognise the importance of information in our country. I have observed that many youths in our country lacking reading culture which is making them to lack skills of how to respond to the society. Therefore, I would like to inform my fellow youth at whole, that education is power and lets always be up to date with latest information by making use libraries in our communities and institution.