Inadequate funding of the National Library Services (NLS) is contributing to the decrease in pupils’ reading culture.
Deputy national librarian Vote Somba said this in Blantyre on Friday when he presented certificates to teacher librarians.
Somba said due to financial constraints, NLS has not managed to fulfil one of its mandates of ensuring that pupils have access to reading materials.
“Our mandate is to ensure that schools in the country have enough reading materials, but we are failing because of the financial constraints facing the institution,” he said. Somba said despite having inadequate funding, they decided to target pupils in primary education.
“We believe that reading culture can be enhanced if it starts from the grass roots level; hence, primary schools being our target,” he said.
In his remarks, representative of the teachers, William Sande, said they are now equipped to assist pupils.
“We will be able to use reference books when teaching and classify recommended books for the pupils as we have been taught here,” he said.
