COAST REGION: THE government has been commended for its efforts in uplifting the reading culture among school children and members of the public at large.
Among government's measures is to distribute children's story books in primary schools aimed at eliminating illiteracy within communities.
Room to Read Programme Operations Manager for Kibaha Community Based office, Ms Agripina Kadama, made the statement on Thursday during the marking of Literacy Week at Mkuranga Primary School in Mkuranga district, which was attended by various education stakeholders.
Ms Kadama said, it was now up to the education stakeholders to establish libraries in all primary schools so that the books are arranged in good order to enable the children access them and borrow them for reading to support the Government's efforts.
She went on to say that Room to Read in collaboration with Mkuranga District Council is implementing Literacy Project in 35 primary schools while providing professional assistance to teachers on facilitation of life skills and financial education in 19 schools.
The project has also provided trainings on reading and writing to 113 teachers in the district; trainings on library supervision to 95 teachers and trainings on running library sessions to 252 teachers.
"Apart from that, we have also managed to distribute a total of 7,906 books on reading and writing to standard one pupils and other 57,319 children's story books as well as 242 guidelines on Library Management," she said.
For her part, Mkuranga District Adult Officer Regina Masyole, who represented District Executive Director (DED), at the event said the Government will continue to work with different stakeholders in ensuring that illiteracy among its people is eliminated.
"Our government is working very hard to ensure friendly environment for studying in its schools and at the same time creating suitable environment for its education stakeholders to enable them to meet their objectives in uplifting education standards," she said.
This year's theme for Literacy Week celebrations was 'Promoting literacy for a world in transition: Building the foundation for sustainable and peaceful societies,"
