NABOTU News
November 17, 2009: National Book Week Festivals get boost
The 17th National Book Week Festival was the most celebrated in the history of book weeks in Uganda. For the first time, 17,000 primary schools across Uganda were expected to join the celebration as they organized reading marathons, silent reading, word games, public reading, book discussions and debates around themes drawn from storybooks. The festival held under the theme, “ a reading parent, a reading child” was held from 14-19 September 2009. The Ministry of Education and Sports has now decided to move school participation in the festival to another level. They have in consultation with NABOTU gazetted 13-18th September 2010 as the dates for the 18th National Book Week Festival. The event to be celebrated in all the primary schools in Uganda will now stand side by side on the school calendar with other events such as national athletics competitions, national music festivals, national football and netball championships etc.
According to Mr. Batambuze, NABOTU Executive Secretary, this news is a great break through as regards our campaign to have reading embraced by the majority of Ugandans. The school system has for many years born the criticism of not encouraging the development of reading habits amongst pupils. Hopefully the lack of a reading culture will now be history as the Ministry and its partners take these early steps of introducing reading for fun within the schools. The challenge on our hands now is transforming this into a worthwhile event for the benefit of school children and their teachers. NABOTU is calling on partners to assist its new initiative to induct teachers in reading promotion and provide millions of storybooks to the schools.
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