Make interesting literature readily available to promote literacy | World Literacy Day

This article was published in The Citizen Newspaper, Tanzania on 13th September, 2024

Shimbo Pastory

One of the global crises today is the decline in the desire to read for pleasure or interest, especially among young people. Most young people globally do not choose reading (especially printed books) as their pleasurable engagement; they read when it is a requirement at school, or when particularly interesting to them.

This should raise an alarm to the responsible government departments to promote reading for pleasure among young people given the advantages of such in their personal development as well as the ripple effect of a reading population. Among these measures is making interesting literature available.

I recall visiting a few public libraries in Tanzania with the intention of exploring some new books to read, but I ended up going back to my laptop to browse the internet, as I did not find interesting books. Most of the books were old and foreign, and I even wondered why some titles are kept in our public libraries.

In my evaluation, most books appeared to be donations which no one can spend their money to buy out of interest. To have better collection of books in our libraries, the government needs to consult writers in the country and known book enthusiasts.

I recall at some point being the only client in one Regional library for the entire morning hours. By implication, the library is not attractive enough to the people.

 Libraries are not meant to be places of excursion for students, etc. when they do not serve their primary purpose of making good books available to the people. Also we have very few libraries. We come to know that we have very few libraries when we travel abroad and see what other countries do in promoting literacy.

According to the data published by the Tanzania Library Services Board (TLBS), we have 2 Ward libraries: Mbweera, Moshi and Rulenge, Ngara.

We have 19 District Libraries: Bagamoyo, Biharamulo, Chunya, Ilala, Kilosa, Kongwa, Kwimba, Lupembe, Lushoto, Makete, Masasi, Mbozi, Mufindi, Ngara, Pangani, Tunduma, Rombo, and Ruangwa.

And we have 22 Regional Libraries: National Central Library, Arusha, Dodoma, Iringa, Kagera, Katavi, Kibaha, Kigoma, Kilimanjaro, Lindi, Mara, Mbeya, Morogoro, Mtwara, Mwanza, Njombe, Rukwa, Ruvuma, Shinyanga, Singida, Tabora and Tanga (Ref. TLBS website, retrieved 10^th Sept. 2024).

In total we have 43 public libraries across the country, to cater for millions of readers: students, professionals and enthusiasts. Those responsible need to do something to improve our libraries and establish new ones as well.

If I compare Tanzania with The Philippines where I live, both countries are classified as Low Middle Income Countries. But The Philippines has made a huge step ahead in promoting reading culture. Here there are 1686 public libraries, with almost half of those being at the ‘Barangay level’ like WARD in Tanzania (Ref. https://web.nlp.gov.ph/directory-2/).

If we really care about promoting literacy we need to have our priorities well set. What matters is not the structures, offices, titles, protocols, procedures, etc. it is the purpose of those establishments to extend the expected service to the people, and to improve the existing conditions everytime.

The National Library here in the Philippines promotes readership by using social media, following young people where they are. They have accounts in all the social media, and they organize programmes that draw the interest of all people to engage with literature. Their Facebook page, for example, had 65k followers. While our National Library has no Facebook page, but has an account which was updated last in 2022.

We need to see the gaps that make our reading for pleasure levels go down and down. Unless people are informed regularly about the interesting things in our public libraries, maintained by taxpayers money, the goals will forever be defeated.

Another problem is that there are many schools with no libraries and no good collection of books, except a few for class instruction. We really need to go beyond this reality, especially considering that some of those schools are as old as the nation or even more. The responsible bodies, the ministry of education as well as Tanzania Board of Library Services need to look into this objectively for the good of generations to come.

How can our young people succeed amidst the international competitiveness with their global peers while they are not prepared well.

Will our 18 year old have the same informedness as their global peers when they have never read even one book for pleasure or interest? Will they keep at pace with modern times and modalities of learning and exploring the world if they are not exposed to global literature and current publications?

We need to not only avail books, but also to maximize the available technology for improving literacy and reading in our country. Inasmuch as a good cause is propagated from above, interested stakeholders can join hands to make the dream come true.

The government may consider availing current newspapers to schools for pleasure reading, since they are more available than books, and the logistics thereof can be sorted out more easily.

There is no harm done insofar as young people are encouraged to love reading, and an effort is done to give them something to read, aside the academic materials. We need fresh approaches to bring interesting literature near young people.