Book coupon scheme should start 'earlier'
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One must welcome that children will receive more books (besides those distributed free by the Ministry of Education) via the pilot project to hand out coupons to kids from poor families.
Some 2.5 million students will get Bt300 per person a year from Prathom 1 to 6 from the second semester of the 2012 year.
But it is regrettable that this plan doesn’t include kindergarten children, who are a suitable age and should be encouraged to read. The more children read from a young age, the more effective they are.
Reading to children for about 10 minutes a day at a convenient time will yield results whether kids are from rich or poor families.
What we often hear is kids aged 3 years, saying “Daddy, read a book to me, please”; “Mommy, read a book to me, please”; or “I want to read a book by myself”; or children sit alone to quietly read in a room (even kids still unable to read).
If kindergarten children must wait to grow up from three till they are six for the chance to get coupons to purchase books, isn’t that too late?
Although parents may not read books to children everyday, if they read for about 10 minutes on most days, that is a lot of time helped to develop a child’s reading habit.
In primary (prathom) level, many kids are illiterate. If doling out coupons for books for kids has no “leakage” problem, it could really yield good results for children. Why does the Ministry of Education not expand this programme to kindergarten children, so that it can help them make them more literate?
Sutipunt Bongsununt
Kanchanaburi
