By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, June 12: The ‘India Reads Movement’, an initiative aimed at promoting the joy of reading and encouraging lifelong reading habits among students, was inaugurated by Sankardev College here on Wednesday. The event, organised by the Department of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) in collaboration with the English Language Teachers’ Association of India (ELTAI) Meghalaya Chapter and Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan-SEMAM, Government of Meghalaya, was held at the DERT.
The launch event featured Education Minister Rakkam A Sangma as the chief guest.
The India Reads Movement seeks to engage students in traditional book reading and e-reading. One of its key goals is to convince school administrators to incorporate reading sessions into the regular class schedule and to initiate reading club activities led by students and mentored by teachers. The movement also plans to conduct competitions to recognize reading talents and organise events like World Book Day and Drop Everything and Read (DEAR) to promote reading.
Senior Adviser and Former National Secretary of ELTAI, Dr K Elango, emphasised the need for extensive reading beyond intensive textbook study and the importance of globalising literature to include various genres and texts. He mentioned, “This movement aimed at catching the students when they are young and to introduce them to reading and this will eventually help in creating opportunities for students to speak and to write.”
Rakkam Sangma highlighted that when we talk about globalising ourselves through the books we read we also need to make aware of the real identity of the tribals and their lifestyles, there is a still a lot of misconception regarding
“We have not written much about us hence the lack of awareness about our own existence in the country. We should not expect others to promote our culture .We should write about it so that people will read it and know,” he further said. The Education minister, however, thanked the movement for contributing their intellect as an asset for the generations to come.
On the other hand, Advisor to the Education Minister, HM Shangpliang, noted that the movement addresses a detected problem, which is the lack of readers, thus, it is necessary for this movement to exist as it aims at encouraging more people to read.
The event also saw the launch of the book On Communicating by Professor TK Bamon, Vice Chancellor of Martin Luther Christian University (MLCU), who expressed hope that her book would benefit not only students but anyone wishing to become a good communicator. MLCU was the first academic member of this movement from the state.
This initiative represents a significant step towards fostering a culture of reading and intellectual growth among the younger generation.