“Silence on lit” – 50 Minutes reading time for Primary Students every Friday

The project “Silence on lit” has been officially launched last week at Raoul Rivet School, Port-Louis. Every Friday, a 50 minutes session will now be dedicated for reading purposes in all primary schools across the island. This project is one of the numerous initiatives by the Ministry of Education to encourage reading. A contest is expected at the end of the year to reward students who have the most.

A book represents our “world heritage”, hence by promoting reading in schools; the Minister of Education hopes to take advantage from this essential factor. With the project “Silence on lit”, the government wishes to adopt a holistic approach to education with emphasis on extra-curricular activities. Thus, these 50 minutes spent in reading will be a sharing moment during which the teacher can evaluate the ability of a student. Moreover, this project will enable the student to progress. Creative reading will be privileged. Students will read a novel and not a textbook, so that they can derive pleasure reading it every day. Also, they are encouraged during this reading session to form a lexicon of words which are unfamiliar to them. “This will also promote the use of dictionary,” said Minister Bunwaree during the launch of this project at Raoul Rivet Government School yesterday.

This initiative also targets primary schools so that reading forms an integral part of students’ life. The objectives are: daily reading, discovery of new books or genre, reading at home, involvement of parents as motivators for reading, refresh books which did not appear interesting and enable teachers to assess competence in appreciating literary works – students can give their feedback on the books read and compare, or recommend them. For the minister Bunwaree, it is primordial to inculcate a reading culture in children since a tender age. “More delay means more difficulties in fostering this reading culture,” he says. Thus, students will have a specific reading program. The Ministry will donate some books in schools and initially, children will be encouraged to exchange between them.

The Minister of Education also announced a contest at the end of the year to reward those who have read the highest number of books.” This competition is vital in order to evaluate the success of the project,” said the minister.

While visiting some classrooms, the minister discussed on the interactive whiteboard with students. The project has already been implemented in STD III and IV. It will be extended to STD V this year. “Gradually, all classes will be equipped with an interactive whiteboard “, said the minister.

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