Declare books essential goods and help build literacy during the lockdown
As World Book Day is commemorated, the lockdown presents an excellent opportunity to promote a reading culture in SA
● Over a week ago the world marked World Book Day, an initiative that promotes reading, publishing and copyright. This year’s World Book Day occurred in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic and the nationwide lockdown in SA. With the lockdown regulations limiting physical movement outside our homes, the day was commemorated online rather than through public events.
But no matter how it marks the day, SA should observe World Book Day as an integral part of human development.
The country is confronted with a dire situation of very low literacy and reading levels. The International Reading Literacy Survey, conducted in 2016, found that 78% of grade 4 pupils in SA could not read for meaning. This poses a huge risk for the future of the country because literacy underpins development in various sectors of society.
The high illiteracy rate owes its origins to our divided past, but it is also true that after more than a quarter of a century of our democratic dispensation we can no longer put the blame only on the erstwhile apartheid regime. We ought to have significantly improved our education system, increased access to books and promoted a widespread reading culture as a national imperative.
Libraries play a pivotal role in giving communities access to reading material and are central in building a community of readers. Despite numerous interventions by the government, civil society organisations and the library sector, libraries — just like bookstores — remain sparsely located, being concentrated in the cities. They continue to serve the privileged minorities to the detriment of township and rural communities.
SA needs sustainable literacy and reading promotion strategies that transcend political administrations.
And literacy and reading promotion should be intensified at moments of social distress. If there is anything we can take from our experience of the lockdown over the past five weeks, it is the supremacy of reading over many other forms of entertainment and information sharing.
In the early stages of the lockdown we saw our country’s nouveau riche displaying cabinets filled with expensive wines and whiskies. More recently, however, we have seen analysts, opinion makers and other thought leaders being interviewed on TV from their homes, with shelves of books in the background. Though this is showy in its nature, it serves as a positive antidote to the previously dominant images of those whose sole agency is their taste in alcohol.
The juxtaposition of the ostentatious display of crass materialism with bookshelves is a sober reminder of the stark contradictions of the world in which we live. It must prompt those who are passionate about reading, and who recognise literacy development as a key ingredient in our national development, to rise and claim the public space.
We need to develop reading as a national pastime in SA.
In countries such as Germany, likewise in the grip of the coronavirus pandemic, books are listed as essential goods. Libraries and bookstores have remained operational during the German lockdown to allow readers to get their “fix”. The reasoning is that, among other factors, when people are confined to limited spaces they need books to transcend their physical environment.
Reading provides a form of escapism. Books transport us to worlds beyond our current physical reach, and expand our horizons of knowledge.
SA needs access to books at this time. The lockdown does not only preclude the physical movement of individuals, it has adverse effects on the mental state. Books are necessary companions in our lives, more so in the solitude brought about by the nationwide lockdown.
Books are our reliable companions when the world closes in on us. They are essential for our mental health. They are good for our sanity, and serve to keep our sensibilities intact and our mental faculties fully functional.
It is unfortunate reading is still viewed as an elitist activity, owing to the fact books remain inaccessible to the majority of our citizens, particularly those living in rural areas.
There are admirable efforts to redress this, such as the Siyafunda Donate-a-Book initiative, whose tagline “No rural child left behind” speaks to the heart of the matter. This is a project initiated by Ntokozo Ndlovu, who is a soldier by profession but, instead of carrying a rifle, is armed with books.
The project has helped set up libraries in rural schools across the country and has donated about 375,000 books to 45 rural schools.
It is also commendable that some publishers have made digital editions of their books freely available on various platforms to students, teachers and lecturers for the duration of the lockdown.
These resources will benefit the schools, further education and training colleges and universities that are able to access them. This would, however, have been more effective if it was part of a systematised and integrated national strategy, as opposed to a series of sporadic ad hoc interventions.
Books can be catered for without compromising the government’s efforts to keep the nation healthy and safe from the spread of the coronavirus.
The age of digital media presents us with vast possibilities, where readers can have access to books while keeping human contact to a minimum.
Institutions of higher learning have online libraries where students can select and order books, and go to the institutions only for collections. Similarly, bookstores list their books online, and there are some that even deliver orders to the doorsteps of their customers the same way newspapers are delivered to our homes.
Access to books at a time such as this would help to ensure that books become an integral part of our lifestyles.
The lockdown has shown that the arts, including film, music and literature, are crucial elements of human endeavour. If the arts are food for the soul, books are the ingredient that nourishes the mind.
Literacy, education and reading promotion should be the cornerstone of our future development beyond the lockdown.