Reading culture among Nigerian students is currently giving serious cause for concern to stakeholders in the education industry considering its importance as pillar for all-round educational development.
Several studies revealed that the reading habits of Nigerian students are declining. It is for this reason and more that stakeholders, including parents, school teachers, librarians, educationists and school counselors lamented the dwindling reading culture amongst students in Nigeria.
Over the years on different occasions, several failed interventions had been employed to promote the culture of reading among young people. For instance, the Reading Association of Nigeria, the Nigerian Book Development Council and the Nigerian Library Association were at the forefront of the struggle for the development of good reading habits among the Nigerian students.
As part of its efforts, the National Library of Nigeria has been sponsoring what it called the readership promotion campaign in the country.
However, it is worrisome that despite the various efforts made to improve the situation, reading culture in the land is still on a steady decline. While writing for the Newyorker, a Nigerian novelist, Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, narrated a conversation she had with the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Bookcraft, Bankole Olayebi, in which the publisher said the number of books his company was selling in 1988 was the same as the number of books it sold in 2015.
This, therefore, suggests that there is 50 percent fall in the reading public over a period of 27 years given that the country’s population had doubled from 90 million in 1988 to 180 million in 2015.
In a study by Dayo Adesulu et al (2017) on reading culture, the author revealed that students waste more time on social media compared to book reading. This, he said, is responsible for the high level of academic under-performance in Nigeria.
The study shows that 40 percent of Nigerian adults never finished reading a fiction book from cover to cover after leaving school. Also, about 30 million Nigerians have graduated from secondary schools with poor reading skills, attributing it to the poor habit cultivated during school days.
Meanwhile, the results of West African Senior School Certificate Examination for private candidates in 2017, 2018 and 2019 have brought concerned stakeholders to sober reflection on the state of the nation’s education. Only 26 percent, 17.13 percent and 26.08 percent of the candidates in 2017, 2018 and 2019 respectively, passed with credits in five subjects, including Mathematics and English Language.
The dwindling reading habit of students did not escape the prying eyes of the new TETFUND Boss, Prof. Suleiman Bogoro, who said, “It became necessary for TETFUND to provide funds for the establishment of Academic Publishing Centres in the six geopolitical zones in the country to stem the diminishing publishing and reading culture in the country.
“I feel ashamed as a professor to see garbage literature being sold by vendors all over the place. This is unacceptable. That is why the publishing centres are being established. We have to ensure standards in our universities.
Also, in her speech about reading culture at a book launch, a Nigerian author, Dr. Balaraba John said: “I realised during my tour in some parts of Nigeria that reading culture has dwindled over the years.
“The evidences are seen through the under-performance of our students. The implications are that poor reading skill makes a child develop poor attitude towards school and creates self-esteem problems later in life. Parents, being the principal educators, should buy books and encourage their kids to read newspapers, magazines and other literature.”
The Speaker, House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, in a lecture titled, ‘Distortion: Erosion of the Reading Culture’ pointed out that contemporary studies have confirmed the sharp and abysmal decline in reading culture among the various ages and population segments in Nigeria.
He further stated that the poor reading habits of students have been a cause of student’s diminishing academic performance.
“Without the opportunity to read widely, what is taught in the classroom cannot be reinforced. Consequently, students cannot develop skills of locating, selecting, organising, evaluating and processing information”.
Emphasising the relevance of internet as a tool that aids fast learning, understanding and practice, the legislator lamented the negative use of internet by the youth, saying: “Added to this are the distractive and wrong application of information and communication technology device. As good as ICT is, many observers say it has also cast some measure of negative effects on Nigerians, especially on their reading habits. This is also as they say that internet obsession has caused many kids to waste valuable times surfing diverse anti-moral and socially inclined websites”.
Highlighting reasons for the decline in reading culture, Dogara said, “Another major phenomenon that has been linked to dwindling reading culture is low level of computer literacy among citizens. A large number of educative materials now come in electronic copies, thereby making it almost inaccessible to people who are not knowledgeable in the use of computer application. The dearth of libraries and the state of our public and institutional libraries have not also helped matters.”
According to Racheal Oyedapo, a librarian at Hezekiah Oluwasanmi Library, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, several factors aside social media have hindered the development of good reading culture.
“There are various factors hindering the development of good reading habits among students in Nigeria. These include: lack of functional school libraries in secondary schools, large percentage of obsolete information materials among the library stock, lack of professional librarians, lack of inviting and conducive environment for reading, lack of adequate funds from government to procure information materials that will cover both intensive and extensive reading, non-existence of public libraries, high poverty rate and illiteracy among others.”
She, therefore, stressed the need for parents to be actively involved in their children’s education from childhood.
“Parents are the first teachers of any student right from childhood; therefore, students should be introduced into the act of reading at early age. Children should be introduced to reading very early in life even before the child steps into school so that children can imbibe reading as a means of self-development and enjoyment. In this regard, mothers should play the important role of introducing reading habits to their children at pre-school
age.”
In addition to this, Balaraba John, who doubles as an author and academic consultant, listed ways by which stakeholders could be involved in promoting reading culture in Nigeria.
“Book exhibition, book talk, story-talk hour, creative activities or creative writing, book clubs, drama and mobile reading tents could serve as interesting ways to promote reading culture.
She further suggested improved funding, establishment of libraries and associating reading with pleasure as means of promoting reading culture, saying: “There are other ways of introducing pleasure or fun to reading such as group reading, excursions to libraries, book fair exhibitions, appropriate legislation and resuscitation of mobile library services. However, there is need to explicitly earmark each stakeholder’s responsibility.
“Therefore, in developing the reading habits of students, there are major stakeholders in the society that should be actively involved, such as parents, government, teachers, school librarians, school counselors and the students
themselves.”
