By Pankaj Adhikari (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-12-21 07:25

The recent news that 10-year-olds in Hong Kong had performed outstandingly on a recent international literacy study is cause for cheer. The city's students put on a sterling display of reading skills.

The Progress in International Literacy Study was coordinated by the Lynch School of education, at Boston College, in the United States, but conducted by academics in each of the 45 countries and regions where the test was given.

According to the results of the survey, Hong Kong students were second only to Russia and ahead of Singapore. Each country or region looked at students at 150 randomly selected schools.

Hong Kong's students topped the world in terms of higher-order literacy skills, which measured their ability to extract information from text, scoring 566 compared to Russian students' 562. The results showed a significant improvement in Hong Kong's score compared with the study's first round, which was conducted in 2001. Local students then ranked 14th out of the 35 participants, tied with Singapore, Russia and Scotland at 528, far behind Sweden's 561.

At a time when books are waging a losing battle against the ubiquitous TV and Internet, this year's survey results brought out an intriguing trend among students.

Appreciation for books has been in steady decline, and the habit of reading is almost non-existent now. According to a survey by the Chinese Institute of Publishing Science in 2005, less than half the people of the country said they were readers.

Today's children are exposed to TV, Nintendo and Playstation.

Children are inundated with information - information provided on the TV and via the Internet. With the click of a mouse, the window to the world is open. As a result, there is hardly any interest in books.

The habit of watching TV and staring at the monitor has dried up imaginations. Our children are devoid of the power to imagine. Ask any child about a recent bestseller, chances are you will be given blank stare.

Confucius, China's earliest educationist and the great ancient intellectual, said: Have an insatiable desire to learn (Xue'er buyan).

But today's children seem to shy away from books. Reviving the habit of reading is thus a formidable challenge.

Time was when reading books was pure fun. Summer and winter holidays would provide us added leisure time to read books, books and more books. As children, we used to have the unalloyed pleasure of reading books, flying on the wings of imagination and exploring magical worlds, visiting mysterious people and savoring blissful experience.

I recall Zhu Yongxin, vice-mayor of Suzhou, who proposed holding a national reading festival that would feature activities like reading salons and reading and speech contests. "Children are like caterpillars, who become butterflies through reading," he said.

"Books can be woven into a beautiful net that helps children preserve their purity, happiness and courage." Zhu also suggested the reading festival be held on September 28, the birth anniversary of Confucius.

Hong Kong ranked third from the bottom in terms of the proportion of parents who placed a high value on reading and in the availability of early childhood reading activities.

Yes, the reading environment at home is an important factor.

Parents can play a vital role in instilling a love of books in children. To start with, reading bedtime stories to kids regularly will help them develop a natural love for books. This must begin from early childhood.

E-mail: pankaj@chinadaily.com.hk

(China Daily 12/21/2007 page10)