Shaping a love of literature for Tanzanian children

It is an unrivalled fact that knowledge is key in the transformation, growth and progress of any society.

This knowledge encompasses skills, trade, morality, history, beliefs, cultures, and all other things that a respective society cherishes and celebrates. Knowledge is precious because it helps to improve lives and living conditions as it aids us in solving problems.

Though there are various means of communicating this knowledge, literature cannot be left out. Having it stored in written form and reading it makes a difference. This is why reading is encouraged. Ability to read enables one to access a big ration of what the world has to offer, especially with the current ease of communication and availability of information.

Mabala the Farmer

Richard Mabala is an accomplished author of children’s literature. Born and raised in the U.K, he moved to Tanzania in 1973 as a volunteer and became a Tanzanian citizen in 1982.

He started his life in Tanzania as a literature teacher and although he moved to other fields, his love of literature has infused all his work as a teacher, facilitator and activist around gender transformation, child and youth rights, civic participation and engagement. Many of the participatory methods used have their base in literary techniques.

Among many others, Mabala is famous for his books ‘Mabala the Farmer’, ‘Hawa the Bus Driver’, ‘Run Free’ which won the Burt award, ‘Kwangu Wapi’, a series of fictional letters to auntie to popularise issues facing girls and how they confront them, as well as ‘Kurwa and Doto’ series which which won him the BAKITA prize for children’s literature.

Observations

The reading culture, he says, is not only poorly encouraged from early childhood, but there are substantively few interesting and attractive books for students, especially those written within the precincts of a culture, life, language, and reality they understand.

The main worry here is that the books are too didactic and so do not attract children. It would have been more encouraging if parents and guardians were active in reading to their children so as to encourage them, but this is not common in our end.

We ought to always remember that there is also a psychological backdrop in the early development of love for literature. There has to be systemic incentives to instil in children voluntary interest in literature. It does not have to be only for the fulfilment of curriculum requirements.

Do young people find joy in literature?

“Literature has to be enjoyed. Pupils read because they have to; and the imaginative side of the brain is thus minimally or not at all developed at school,” says Mabala.

Meanwhile, we might be speaking about passion for literature while ignoring the question of the availability of the very material component of the literature we wish to encourage. Are there books? And to be clear, good and interesting books?

Mabala highlights the saddening fact that books are not available as weighed against the need of taste, genre, nature, and variety which will be good enough and amusing for young children. Many schools have no books outside the few text books. It has to be lovely before it can be loved. With no lovely books we cannot encourage love for literature.

What about the language?

There is also the challenge of the language of instruction which cannot be forgone. From secondary school, students have to read in a language that the majority have not mastered. This makes reading so much of a struggle, the struggle which continues right up to university. We then see here that reading becomes an even less amusing activity.

We need to reconsider why English is privileged over Swahili. The fact that the system has an influence in what literature children/students read accounts for the diminishing interest in Swahili literature. These students/children do not see the need to read Swahili works as they are not for any ‘fulfilment’. Furthermore, as Mabala particularizes, the Swahili used in these works is not up to date as they code switch all the time.

How can we encourage love for literature?

The answer to this is two ways; love for literature can be encouraged at a personal level as well as at the system level. However, the success of the latter has a lot to do with that of the former. In fact, the latter also has an audience advantage, as we all are influenced by the policies and priorities put forward by the government and its supervisory bodies.

Mabala also calls for the government to use writers with a flair for writing instead of thinking everyone can write for children. It is actually harder to write for children even if their books are shorter.

The government should also invest in libraries: district, community, and school libraries and carry out campaigns for library use. Most libraries look abandoned, and they are full of old books, most of which are uninteresting for young people. It is high time to begin buying current books, and not depend on donations and charity.

The forgotten audience

Mabala calls attention to a forgotten audience. There is need for encouraging conditions for authors to write books specifically for adolescents and young adults who have been forgotten. There is a clear margin in the book industry at the moment where young children and adults have more variety and choice, in terms of themes and matters related to their age and maturity. Adolescents and young adults do not have the same.

Adolescence is an age that a person comes up clearly with both a passion and decision about what they want to do in life. With no relevant and proper literature available specifically for them, adolescents and young adults can hardly develop love for literature, be it consuming, as in reading, or creating, as in writing.

It is a pull-back when they find that books are either way below their age, or way above their age and taste. With the former they will be discomfited, just like any adult would if asked to sing “the wheels on the bus go round round round..;” with the latter they will feel intimidated, just like a child being told to read complex thoughts like nihilism, existentialism, phenomenology, etc.

Need to revisit policies

There is also an urgent need to reconsider the education policies in place at the moment. We cannot proudly stand and say the policies in place today encourage children to love literature. Tanzania needs a more pragmatic approach in this.

We need an approach that creates room for following up and measuring the results of the incentives put in place in encouraging: first the love, second the passion, and third the active devotedness to consuming and producing literature in its many varieties.

The accomplishment of our children’s education journey should be measured by learning rather than examinations. “Every two years exams have created a culture of cramming not education” Mabala accentuates. “Because advancement depends on passing the exams, parents also go crazy over the cramming culture. When their kids want to do something creative parents tell them to go back to their homework,” he added. The modern world has outgrown this.

We need to revisit the 1970s when group and individual projects were used as a part of continuous assessment. We need to develop 21st Century skills such as critical and creative thinking instead of memorisation which is no longer a useful skill. This does not mean that it is completely bad as for some reasons and inquiries memorisation is necessary.

The effort that the government, policy makers, and parents invest in nurturing love for literature in children ought to correspond with the winds and trends of the current times, tech, as well as matters of interest.