Reviving and Promoting Reading Culture among Selected Secondary Schools in Nasarawa State

Abstract

Over the years there has been a great concern over the high decline in the reading culture in Nigeria especially among the younger generation. The appalling level of decline of reading culture and apathy towards books among the youth is becoming embarrassing. The mass failure being experienced recently in most of the national examinations like WEAC, NECO, NEBTEB, JAMB amongst others are surely connected to this drop and lack of interest in reading among students. This research therefore aims at drawing attention to the need to revive and re-introduce the reading culture in Nigeria especially among the secondary school students. To achieve these, a comprehensive mixed-method approach is employed incorporating both the qualitative and quantitative methodologies in this research. The motivation theory of reading is adopted for the theoretical framework of the research. Two secondary schools were selected from Nasarawa State while the respondents drawn from the selected schools were subjected to two major reading training techniques and intra competition. The principal findings of this research reveals that lack of training students in reading skills and techniques and absence of reading clubs in secondary schools are responsible for the gross decline in the reading culture of the students. These recommendations out of many were made at the close of the research that training of secondary school students should be given priority and reading clubs should be established in all our secondary schools. We are optimistic that if reading culture is revived among students, the high rate of failure will reduce drastically. If this is achieved, parents, society and the government will not be left out in this anticipated awakening of the reading culture among students of secondary schools in Nasarawa state and Nigeria at large.