Why Thai people read only eight sentences per year

Siam square the biggest hot spot for teenagers in Thailand is always welcome everybody. Among people who were shopping, chatting, and laughing, there was a teenage boy with glasses and bang who carried books in his hand and the rest in his shoulder bag. It was a sunny afternoon but that boy still walked from blocks to blocks in Siam Square and read the books out loud at the same time. A lot of people stopped and looked at him, some smiled, some wondered. That boy’s name is Attikhun or Earth, one of the main characters in a popular series, Hormones. He said he wanted to encourage teenagers to read and be a leader of readers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srPQh2cfHFU

This is just an example of the people and organizations that are trying to improve Thai’s reading skills after there was a research mentioned a sentence that is like an alarm clock woke whole of Thai people, the sentence said that Thai people read only eight sentences per year.

A remarkable signal that showed the waking of Thailand is reading campaigns from Thai government and Bangkok’s governor. Thai government declared “Reading Agenda” that has begun from 2009 to 2016. By the end of the project, government expects 95 percent of people can read, and the number of books that  people read will up from less than two books per year to at least five books per year. Before investigate more in this article about the progress of “Reading Agenda”, I would like to mention another important campaign. Bangkok decided to compete with other seven cities such as Kuala Lumpur, London and Lisbon to be the UNESCO World Book capital. With a lot of projects that emerged to attract the committee, composed of representatives from the three main branches of the publishing world and UNESCO since 2010, finally Bangkok declared to be the UNESCO World Book capital on June 27^th, 2013. If we consider from these two main projects, the situation should improve.

Regarding from recent study, the number of books that people read rises very few reversed to the number of invested money in these projects. Are there any significant implications beneath this result? Let find out together.

Look back in history, Thai people have never encouraged to learn. Learning was the privilege that reserved for the upper class families only. In addition, by natural characteristics, Thai people prefer to perceive the entertainment from watching, playing or talking than reading. There were a lot of members in the upper class families graduated from western and tried to improve Thailand in many aspects, however no one interested in publishing until 1839 when Dr.Dan Beach Bradley, who was honored as the father of Thai publishing, printed his first book. Not only printed the books but he was also the pioneer in media business by starting to publish Bangkok Recorder, first Thai newspaper, in 1844. Compared with western, Gutenberg printed out first Bible around 1450, almost four centuries before Thai people introduced to know printing. And  now, I would like to bring you back to present, situation is not change much, people in rural area think education is extravagant. Some want to keep their children as their labors so they avoid sending their children to school. Lack of educational opportunities makes children rarely improve their reading skills.

People in the writing circles are interested in this issue too and there is one who cannot be neglected when reading problem discussed in Thailand, Makut Onrudee. He is a famous writer who was esteemed to be the National Artists in 2012. More than 10 years that he has called for the National Institute of Books to revolute the whole system of Thai’s schoolbooks, yet no government is interested. He said the problems are not just about lacking of books, it started from the first step of a book that is writers. In Thailand, there are a few good writers because people generalized writers as poor. Makut said the situation is worse than most people think. Moreover, he mentioned about the government’s responsibilities. The situation goes too far more than only ordinary people can fix them. It is necessary to change the whole structure of reading process, not only buy more books like government always did. If government does not change their attitude about this problem, in 2016 when reading agenda ends, he dares say that nothing changes and government has to pay again for a new “Reading Agenda”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0xLuYK0HNk

Even in the darkest cave, we still can see a small spot of light. Although, the situation seems worse, I still hope it will be better soon, as long as we still want to change, as long as we still want to improve our country. As a person in this country, we can begin from ourselves. We can gather our friends and read together maybe in the evening or we can go to our communities and read to children or elderly who cannot read. If we do, our friends do, and others do these can be a good sign of changing. It is not too old fashioned to say, “Unity is power.” I believe the good will can inspire people because when I watched Earth’s clip on You Tube, I vowed to myself. I have to read more and I want to do some activities to encourage children as well as people to read. One day we can call Thailand as a real country of reading.
References
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