Study proposes to boost literacy with newspapers

A new study has proposed a strategy to promote literacy and lifelong learning by increasing the number of newspaper readers with the help of the newspaper industry.

The study suggests that newpaper publishers could, for example, support educational programmes in schools and sponsor reading rooms in towns and villages, with both projects using newspapers as reading material.

The proposed strategy also includes initiatives that rope in other key social players such as the government and the Church.

The study, "Adult illiteracy and Sunday newspaper readership in Malta", was carried out by Ivan Said for a Master of Arts degree in Social Studies under the academic supervision of Prof. Godfrey Baldacchino.

Mr Said's main aim was to show that "it is in the interest of the local newspaper industry to look into a social problem like illiteracy, since a slump in literates may result in a decrease in the number of readers, particularly newspaper readers".

"One illiterate more is one more potential newspaper reader less," Mr Said remarks elsewhere in the study.

Indeed, newspaper publishers may have reason to be concerned about the statistics. In 1995, according to the population census of that year, the number of illiterate people in Malta stood at 36,444, or 11.24 per cent of the population aged 10 and over. Although the percentage was higher in 1985, when it was 12.2 per cent, the 1995 figure actually represents a rise of more than 2,000 in the sheer number of illiterates.

"Of greater concern," says Mr Said, "is the significant increase in the number of illiterates registered in the 10-19 age group which, from 534 (1.1 per cent) in 1985, shot up to 1,775 (4.9 per cent) in 1995."

For his own research, Mr Said carried out a telephone survey of Sunday newspaper readership in four towns: Sliema, Attard, Fgura and Senglea.

Among his findings was that The Sunday Times was by far the most popular Sunday paper in the four-town sample, with 80 per cent of respondants saying they read it. It-Torca and The Malta Independent on Sunday claimed 25 per cent readership each, with Il-Mument and Kullhadd following at 21 and 10 per cent respectively.

The Sunday Times is the leading newspaper in Sliema (90 per cent), Attard (86 per cent) and Fgura (71 per cent), but comes in second (50 per cent) to it-Torca (73 per cent) in Senglea.

More importantly, Mr Said's research revealed a strong correlation between illiteracy and Sunday newspaper non-readership.

According to census data, the illiteracy rate of the adult population in the four towns was an average of eight per cent, but in Senglea it reached 18.77 per cent, while in Fgura it was 9.9, in Attard six and in Sliema five per cent.

Mr Said found that Sunday newspaper non-readership in the four towns was 41 per cent on average. But generally, the higher the illiteracy rate in a town, the higher was found to be the rate of non-readership.

The link stood out most clearly in the case of Senglea and Fgura, where the highest and the second highest rates of illiteracy were coupled with the highest and the second highest rates of non-readership.

In the light of his findings, Mr Said has proposed a strategy to boost literacy through increasing newspaper readership in a context of lifelong learning.

"A newspaper, an important means of informal learning, can develop or at least stimulate literacy and readership skills, keep one au courant of the latest developments and broaden one's knowledge.

"Thus, bearing in mind the extent of illiteracy in the four towns under study (eight per cent) and the rate of newspaper non-readers in the same towns (41 per cent) a national strategy to promote newspaper readership should be launched.

"Such a strategy aims to increase newspaper readers and consequently decrease illiteracy."

The strategy, which would be based on a public-private partnership, would complement the recommendations made by the Working Committee for Facilitating Consultations in Lifelong Learning.

The strategy would comprise three levels: national, sectoral and community.

On a national level, a culture of learning would be promoted among the low skilled, school dropouts and adult illiterates. The main sponsor would be the Ministry of Education, but would include participation by the Employment and Training Corporation, the University of Malta and the Church. Actions taken would include a national media campaign.

The newspapers would come in at the sectoral level of the strategy. "It is high time that the media industry pulls its socks up and starts collaborating with the educational institutions," says Mr Said.

"Newspaper publishers and journalists must put aside their political differences and unite for this just cause."

He proposes that the industry join forces with the Press Club to work in partnership with state and private schools to introduce "Newspapers in Education" programmes, a world project mooted by Unesco and the World Association of Newspapers.

The programmes would be used to teach subjects such as history, reading, social science, maths, economics, composition, journalism and government.

Newspaper publishers, he further suggests, could sponsor the setting up of reading rooms in various local councils or civic centres and supply them with daily newspapers free of charge. The newspapers could be back numbers as the primary aim of the exercise would be reading.

The publishers could also donate books and other reading material to local public and private libraries and sponsor adult evening literacy classes in educationally depressed areas.

"Editors can also help the literacy cause by creating new weekly pages for novel adult literates in their newspapers. Distributing newspapers free of charge in areas with a predominance of illiteracy can also help in decreasing the number of illiterates."

At a community level, Mr Said says an attempt is needed to reduce the number of illiterates in Senglea in particular. The sole sponsors could be the commercial developers of the Cottonera project with the collaboration of the local council.

The sponsorship would go towards hosting the ETC's "Literacy for Employment" classes, which proved highly successful when carried out in Zejtun in collaboration with the Paulo Freire Institute and the university's Literacy Unit.