Literacy crisis: Parents urged to step up as exam scores plummet

Parents must take a more active role in their children’s literacy development, the nation’s chief librarian said Wednesday, as Barbados and the rest of the region grapple with declining pass rates in English and Mathematics.

Jennifer Yarde, Director of the National Library Service (NLS), told Barbados TODAY that parental involvement in children’s reading has dropped significantly over her nearly 40-year career, coinciding with a stark decline in literacy rates and children’s interest in reading sessions.

Her comments come in the wake of concerns raised by the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) and other education stakeholders following a significant drop in pass rates for English and Mathematics in the May/June exams.

Speaking at the NLS Summer Programme Camp Vision entrepreneurship expo and showcase in Freedom Park, Bridgetown, on Wednesday, Yarde said: “Reading was a family issue; parents brought their children to the library on Saturday mornings over at Coleridge Street [previous location for the library], and children used to be on the steps from the top to the bottom in the courtyard, accompanied by their parents.”

She added: “Literacy began in the home, and that is something that I knew and that the parents knew. But now, children have a lot of distractions. They have the tablets, and half of them do not read on these different devices. A lot of them play games, they are not reading, and the parents are not really supervising what they are doing on the Internet. The children are supervising themselves and parents are taken out of the equation to a large extent.”

Despite the NLS continuing its weekly Story Hour sessions at the main branch in The City on Saturdays, attendance has steadily declined over the years. Yarde noted that parents are increasingly prioritising other extracurricular activities for their children, while reading has been relegated to the “backburner”.

The library service plans to resume several intervention initiatives that were halted due to COVID-19. 

“This is something we have to revamp. We went to the government polyclinics, the parent teachers association, and we spoke to parents about the importance of literacy and more importantly about the role of the family in children’s literacy development. That is critical,” Yarde explained.

She emphasised that addressing the literacy crisis requires a community-wide effort: “The ministry cannot do all, we cannot do all, we have to have the support of the community.”

Yarde warned of the broader societal implications of declining literacy rates: “When you have an illiterate society, crime escalates. Literacy is more than ability to read and write; it’s the ability to articulate, synthesise and decipher right from wrong. It’s the schools, the police service, the Child Care Board, the Ministry of People Empowerment, everybody must come together if we want to have a different Barbados.” 

(SB)