The Sunday Mail
President Robert Mugabe is known as an avid reader, and it shows in his broad and deep grasp of matters ranging from Shakespeare to economics.
Since Independence in 1980, the President has championed education for all, which has seen Zimbabwe boasting of the best literacy rate in Africa.
But while Zimbabwe prides itself on its literacy rate, experts say the reading culture is in decline.
The matter of the country’s reading culture came up for discussion at the Zimbabwe International Book Fair last week at Harare Gardens.
This year’s edition was themed “Igniting Interest in Reading for Sustainable Development”.
Over the first two days of ZIBF, there was an Indaba where stakeholders in the literary sector deliberated on issues affecting the book industry and how best the challenges could be tackled.
The overwhelming view was that the reading culture has been eroded by technological advancements. The growth of the video gaming industry, driven by increased Internet access, has changed how children spend their time.
And rather than read books or visit libraries, children largely prefer playing games, and spending time on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp.
However, participants at the ZIBF Indaba noted, technology should be harnessed to improve the reading culture.
With the majority of people spending more time on the Internet, it was pointed out that there was scope to encourage use of e-resources to download and read books.
Local universities have embraced online libraries although there is need to encourage other institutions to adopt the such innovations.
Publishers and writers were also urged to take advantage of technological advances to reach their readers; while the public was encouraged to make greater use of their gadgets and go beyond gaming and social conversations and also use them to access constructive content.
