There is this question, which has severally been asked, in agony. Why is literature lessening in popularity as a subject for students? In my A-level, I happened to come from a class of more than 90 Arts students. Out of this, only about 15 of us had Literature in our combination. While subjects like History, Geography, Economics and Divinity boasted of colossal numbers, mostly over 80 students, Literature class, as has always been self-made History in the school, reeked from scarcity of students. Despite this, we only had one consistent teacher to handle us on most of the books, including poetry. A few others were hired, but the administration blamed the situation on the dearth of Literature teachers.
From my experience at the time, Literature students used to be held in high esteem as they were thought to have one of the heaviest reading schedules. The argument of many other students on why they could not take Literature is because of the numerous books, some of which, like Jane Eyre and The Grapes of Wrath were too voluminous. The Beautiful Ones Are Not yet Born was termed, even by Literature students themselves as complex and myriad of imagery and symbolism. Poetry on the other hand is regarded as complex. They fail to understand that reading does not merely require passion. It requires a positive attitude towards whatever genre one wants to read. The fact that many students have a negative attitude towards Literature, which though they admire, they fear to take on as part of their subject combination.
Reading culture is lacking in this case. This should begin right from the time child begins to read. While I was still in primary, reading used to be a routine, there was time, purely dedicated to reading. The school would buy the necessary story (some of the most popular ones used to be the Moses Series, by Barbara Kimenye, an East African Author) books and make it a point that each pupil has something to read, besides the usual textbooks. I hardly notice the same culture in progress nowadays.
This is what has continued to make Literature a less popular subject by the wake of everyday. Reading culture has not been cultivated from the elementary stage of schooling. The pupils and students are not encouraged to read. They over dwell on textbook reading, and in most cases, they rely on mere 'spoon feeding' geared solely to excelling. That is why the universities and other institutions of higher learning keep receiving a bunch of half-baked high school students who can hardly do research on their own. For their 'good' grades, they get matriculated to the institutions of higher learning, but can hardly construct a sentence. Most of them are heavily handicapped by mother tongue pronunciation of English.
For the lack of reading, the children grow up knowing it is not a big deal to read story books or literature genres. It is a big deal! No wonder, in the 1960's Taban Lo Liyong' decried that East Africa is a literary desert. This ‘desert’ does not grow from nowhere. It begins with the lose of interest in reading. This trend needs to change once and for all. The education system should first and foremost encourage the reading culture amongst the students. Students should be encouraged to take up Literature en masse. More teachers need be trained to specialise in teaching Literature. More genres especially by local authors should be emphasised in order to revive the spirit and passion in the subject.
Joshua Masinde
From my experience at the time, Literature students used to be held in high esteem as they were thought to have one of the heaviest reading schedules. The argument of many other students on why they could not take Literature is because of the numerous books, some of which, like Jane Eyre and The Grapes of Wrath were too voluminous. The Beautiful Ones Are Not yet Born was termed, even by Literature students themselves as complex and myriad of imagery and symbolism. Poetry on the other hand is regarded as complex. They fail to understand that reading does not merely require passion. It requires a positive attitude towards whatever genre one wants to read. The fact that many students have a negative attitude towards Literature, which though they admire, they fear to take on as part of their subject combination.
Reading culture is lacking in this case. This should begin right from the time child begins to read. While I was still in primary, reading used to be a routine, there was time, purely dedicated to reading. The school would buy the necessary story (some of the most popular ones used to be the Moses Series, by Barbara Kimenye, an East African Author) books and make it a point that each pupil has something to read, besides the usual textbooks. I hardly notice the same culture in progress nowadays.
This is what has continued to make Literature a less popular subject by the wake of everyday. Reading culture has not been cultivated from the elementary stage of schooling. The pupils and students are not encouraged to read. They over dwell on textbook reading, and in most cases, they rely on mere 'spoon feeding' geared solely to excelling. That is why the universities and other institutions of higher learning keep receiving a bunch of half-baked high school students who can hardly do research on their own. For their 'good' grades, they get matriculated to the institutions of higher learning, but can hardly construct a sentence. Most of them are heavily handicapped by mother tongue pronunciation of English.
For the lack of reading, the children grow up knowing it is not a big deal to read story books or literature genres. It is a big deal! No wonder, in the 1960's Taban Lo Liyong' decried that East Africa is a literary desert. This ‘desert’ does not grow from nowhere. It begins with the lose of interest in reading. This trend needs to change once and for all. The education system should first and foremost encourage the reading culture amongst the students. Students should be encouraged to take up Literature en masse. More teachers need be trained to specialise in teaching Literature. More genres especially by local authors should be emphasised in order to revive the spirit and passion in the subject.
Joshua Masinde
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