Teachers, faculty and management of Pakistan School, Seeb in Muscat, Oman got an opportunity to know about the challenges facing Pakistanis, when it comes to reading. The extremely low level of literacy along with no focus on reading as a habit are creating a generation of illiterates.
Adviser, Read Pakistan, Muhammad Farooq, touched upon the core issues resulting in this dismal situation, the reasons behind them, and possible steps to tackle them. Efforts of READ PAKISTAN were highlighted and the attendees where invited to join forces in this noble cause.
The current state of affairs is that even people who can read, dont!, that is, they dont read as a passion or a hobby. School going children do read, however, they do, because they have to, not because they want to. The whole system is impacted; from diminishing number of libraries, to having no librarians, to vanishing authors, and closing printing presses.
Pakistan is no different from other Muslim lands, where the statistics are not much encouraging. However, there is a movement of revival across the board and a lot of countries are trying to reverse this horrible trend. UAE is taking the lead in the region.
The seminar was an interactive one, and the attendees got a chance to offer their ideas. Finally, children books were gifted to the principal of Pakistan Seeb School, Mr. Mazhar Bukhari, in the presence of Dr. Muhammad Shafiq.