By Ibironke Ariyo
The FCT Education Resource Centre (ERC) City Library has organised a book reading and writing competition for secondary school students to promote reading culture.
Speaking during the competition on Thursday in Abuja, the Director, FCT, ERC, Neemat Abdulrahim, said the FCT education resource centre was majorly for measurements and evaluation of students.
Abdulrahim said the centre was dedicated to promoting reading and writing culture among Nigerian students, as well as, build and train emerging writers and lovers of writing in the country.
She said the competition, which was in collaboration with Sprezzatura Publishing Company, was for assessment of students to know the level of their performance.
“As a centre, if we do not access the students, we cannot know their performance.
“And that is why we feel reading and essay competition is very neccessary and the city library has been involved in this, particularly in FCT.
“We believe its another way of reviving and revamping the Library services in FCT and also reviving the reading culture among our students through promoting reading habit,” she said.
According to her, students are more into social media and they do not read books anymore.
“So we feel that with this competition, we will motivate them, encourage them in reading and writing, also develop their skills too with prize giving to also motivate them,” she said.
The Director General, Nigerian Army Resource Centre (NARC), Major General Garba Wahab (rtd), said books were meant for general knowledge.
Wahab represented by a Director, Major Gen. Abubakar Tarfa (rtd) advised the students to cultivate the habit of writing and speaking good English.
“Reading is the best way of broadening your knowledge. This is so because the more you read, the more exposed and confident you are.
“When you read, you will develop your vocabulary, your knowledge and awareness of your environment on the things you read and you become more knowledgeable,” he said.
Dr Mohammed Usman, Former Managing Director, transmission Company of Nigeria, lauded the initiative, saying it would help raise awareness on reading and writing for secondary school students.
Usman said it was a notable fact that the present generation had not been reading, and that it made it difficult to relate with the past and present to project the future.
This he said was the reason Nigeria was not developing the way it ought to.
“We need to let the students know that these are our mistakes that we are not relating our potential for our capacity to develop.
“But when we imbibe the culture of reading into the students, they will overcome the mistakes of our generation,” he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the book read was the “Legend of Buratai Volume 2” with five secondary schools participating.
The highlights of the event were prizes which were in two categories; book reading and essay writing.
In the book reading category, Hanifa Muhammad, SS2A, Government Secondary School, Tudun Wada, Zone 4, won the prize for overall best in reading, while Beatrice Lawrence, SS2B, Government Secondary School, Wuse Zone 3, took first position in essay writing.
Muhammad, expressed gratitude to God for the accomplishment, saying that reading had exposed her to alot of things.
Muhammad said she had been able to improve in her English speaking through reading and encouraged others to do same. (NAN)
