Why reading is paramount.

Why reading is paramount
Watching the Zain Africa Challenge made me think and reflect about something. Knowledge is what remains after learning much in the same way as education is what remains after school. Here where Africa’s strongest brains at work in a competition that has had more competitors thrown off as the Competition proceeds to each round. The Zain Africa challenge which pits universities across Africa in a knowledge competition has been touted as a major intellectual undertaking not so for its cash prizes and institutional grants but its ability to bring together in competition some of the top brains from Africa’s Universities . I say top not because they are originators of complex theories or that their names are inscribed in academic journals but because of their ability to express their knowledge of the most important things any human should be knowing.
But what is the success behind these competitors?
The challenge provides a rare opportunity for exercising of the competitor’s general knowledge on a wide variety of issues ranging from science, current affairs, sport, history, culture, literature e.t.c. It’s a simplified way of testing individuals or teams’ knowledge of various aspect of life from a wide spectrum of choices. But what makes them outstanding is their exposure to a wide variety of reading material from a spectrum of subjects. Knowledge is accumulated overtime through exposure to a wide range of literary choices.
Thus one remains awed when a student of technology takes on a medic in a battle of wits over the history of ancient Greece and Mesopotamia as much in the same way as an aspiring Artist is challenged by a poet in a duet over the isosceles triangle. This is representative of the fact that reading is not for the acquisition of good grades only but development of the mind to deal with complex challenges. The ability to compete in this challenge represents an individual’s wide spectrum of knowledge and fast thinking which can only be enabled by a good reading culture facilitated from childhood through to adulthood.
The influx of gadgets and the internet grossly undermined the development of the still weak reading culture in Africa. Books remained to be text-books and little emphasis has been put in to reading outside the curriculum. Reading empowers the individual and develops their communication skills and self esteem. Uganda needs to invest hugely into this area and interventions by such organisations like the Uganda Library Association, Reading Initiative Foundation of Uganda; Uganda Book Publishers Association should not only be commended but supported. Similar undertakings like the Newspapers in Education should be lauded for their continued promotion of literacy in less fortunate regions of the country.
Moses Kalanzi
The author is an Advocacy Officer with the Reading Innitiative Foundation of Uganda.