Just recently, two leaders in the field of Maltese culture –Vicki Ann Cremona, chairwoman of the University’s School of Performing Arts, and Chris Gatt, manager of St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity – expressed their dismay at the country’s abysmal ranking in a Eurobarometer survey in terms of cultural participation. The island ranked second to last.
Their assessment was that the Maltese contribute to a “cultural wasteland” when it comes to theatre-going, music and support for the arts scene generally.
Why? A large part of the answer may be found in a scathing assessment by the Minister for Education and Employment, Evarist Bartolo, who, commenting on the same survey, emphasised that almost half the Maltese population (44 per cent) had not read a book in the last year. He linked this to the commendable and ambitious National Literacy Strategy, which he launched within weeks of taking office. He wanted to inject an element of pleasure back into reading.
“Our skills, intelligence, the way we behave as citizens and the ability to think critically depend on reading,” he said. He might have gone further and said that love of reading was the key, not only to further learning and knowledge, but also to a better and more fulfilled life with unfettered enjoyment of culture and the arts.
The minister averred that linking books simply to examinations and tests only served to kill the pleasure of reading. Thus, reading became an exercise in fear and anxiety rather than a cause of joy and for the exercise of the imagination. By making reading a matter of committing words to memory, schools risked killing the student’s joy in reading.
He believes that it was important to review the kind of books that form part of the school syllabus in both English and Maltese and the subsequent manner in which literature is taught. For example, he feels that books in Maltese too often hark back to a Malta of 80 years ago, whereas there are now many good contemporary Maltese authors who are more relevant and able to excite the imagination of young people.
The former National Book Council chairman, Ġorġ Mallia, echoing these thoughts, underlined the essential need for children to be encouraged to read for enjoyment. He stressed that books should be visibly present in the home and for efforts to be directed at targeting – presumably through schools – those families where the habit of reading was not naturally ingrained. The importance of parents reading at bedtime to their children was also highlighted. “The way literature was taught needed to be remodelled,” he said, “in a manner which shifted the focus away from the clinical and pedantic... and on to the beauty of emotions which infuse it.”
The Education Minister is clearly deeply committed to the need, through the National Literacy Programme, to overcome the nation’s low achievements in literacy. Recent studies showed that 36 per cent of 15 –year-olds in Malta were low achievers in terms of reading compared with an EU average of almost 20 per cent, and the mean reading score of 10-year-olds was significantly lower than the international average.
Despite the high national investment in recent years, the system has failed too many students in perhaps the most basic skill of all – reading.
The National Book Festival that is being held this week offers parents a sterling opportunity to take their children and, together, to encourage them to share in the pleasures, challenges and hidden excitement of books.
To be considered well-read is indeed a great compliment.