Do you try to impress by lying over how many books you read every year? If you do, you must be a very rare Maltese citizen because if the Maltese lie about many things they do not lie about reading. Most of them are ready to admit that they do not read books. The result of a recent survey carried out in Britain as part of the National Year of Reading campaign shows that nearly half of all men and one-third of women have lied about what they have read to try to impress friends or potential lovers. A BBC news feature on this survey some days ago said that one in five adults admitted they would read their chosen material whilst waiting for their date to arrive in the hope of making a good first impression. Up to 74 per cent of teenagers confessed to pretend to have read social networking pages or song lyrics to impress their friends and their dates. In three days’ time the National Year of Reading campaign comes to an end in Britain. During 2008 the British Government’s Department for Children, Schools and Families organized this campaign as “a year-long celebration of reading, in all its forms. It aims to increase awareness of the many values of reading – anything, anytime, anyplace – for children, families and adult learners alike.”
Needless to say no such campaign has been organized by the Maltese government in the last 20 years. Between 1996 and 1998 as Minister of Education I had enthusiastically put reading and literacy at the top of the national agenda. I managed to mobilize persons and organizations from all walks of life in many different villages and towns to spread the habit and love of reading. After those two years I was happy to be told by book shops and libraries that more people were buying books and visiting libraries. But that was only a start and it had to be sustained year after year if we were to turn our people into people who love to read books and who enjoy visiting libraries to read books.
Even after I went back to the Opposition benches I campaigned for reading and literacy and encouraged the government to put together a national strategy to spread reading and literacy and to take measures to support local book production. But I was largely ignored and since then the government has been very complacent and has not taken the necessary urgent action in this area.
No wonder then that a survey about reading taken last year for the European Union put us at the bottom of the heap of all member states. 54 per cent of the Maltese said that they had not read a single book for a whole year. 75 per cent of the Maltese said that for a whole year they had never visited a public library to borrow books.
After the results of this survey were announced government failed to take any remedial action. As usual some speeches were made about the need to cultivate the love of books in our society, a handful of articles appeared in the press, a couple of interviews were carried on the topic and then it was business as usual: doing nothing except for saying how our country is going to become a centre of excellence by 2015 … in the meantime many Maltese do not read books, very few participate in cultural activities and science is absent from the life of most children and many young people.
A few weeks ago I asked in parliament for detailed information about government expenditure in public libraries and was shocked to be told that in 2004 government spent €22,863 to buy 4,290 books and that this sum has now dwindled to €6,412 this year when only 713 books were bought. Government does not even have the decency to support local publications by buying copies of the books produced locally for the national public library and the libraries in our towns and villages.
When the Book Fair was opened a few weeks ago at the Mediterranean Conference Centre the Minister for Education made the right kind of noises in her speech and praised local authors and local book publishers. She also stressed that a people who does not read falls behind. But once the opening speech was over all the importance of reading was forgotten and no new national initiatives have been launched to spread the habit of reading among different generations in Malta and Gozo.
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In three days’ time the National Year of Reading campaign comes to an end in Britain. During 2008 the British Government’s Department for Children, Schools and Families organized this campaign as “a year-long celebration of reading, in all its forms. It aims to increase awareness of the many values of reading – anything, anytime, anyplace – for children, families and adult learners alike.”
