The Federal Government has linked the high rate of poor compression skills among pupils to a lack of reading culture.
Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Andrew Adejo, said this during the launch of the 2023 Readership Promotion Campaign organised by the National Library of Nigeria in Abuja.
The 2023 Readership Promotion Campaign, which is an annual event of the National Library of Nigeria (NLN), will take place in all the 36 States and the Federal Capital Territory with the theme “Read your way to the top.”
Adejo noted that studies carried out by the agency showed that half of adults in Nigeria hardly read books.
He said: “It is a popular saying that a country cannot rise above its level of education and I wish to add that our level of education depends a great deal on our reading culture. It is for this reason that we see this Annual Readership Promotion Campaign as a way of moving the nation forward economically, socially and politically.
“The general saying that ‘if you want to hide anything from a Nigerian, put it in a book’ is becoming worse because we are reading less than we used to. This is more evident in our young ones and is becoming worrisome with the heavy reliance on digital reading sources.
“Statistics show that a good percentage of Nigerian children have trouble with reading comprehension. Such developments make the initiation of various Readership Promotion Campaigns by the National Library of Nigeria more compelling and the NLN has made the promotion of reading one of its top priorities in the fulfillment of its mandate.”
National Librarian and Chief Executive Officer of the NLN, Prof Chinwe Anunobi said the readership campaign which was held in 2022 impacted over 4,000 individuals comprising secondary school students and other adults.
She also blamed the poor reading culture in the country on inadequate educational resources, the advent of social media among others.