Encouraging the habit of reading at all stages of life, with special effort in improving reading comprehension, and at the same time insisting on the professionalization of writers are some of the axes of the National Book and Reading Plan that has been approved this Tuesday in the Council of Government.
The plan, which has been presented by the ministers of Culture, Natàlia Garriga, and of Education, Anna Simó, includes 73 measures to carry out until 2030, with a global budget of 58 million euros, among which there are some new ones and others that improve actions that were already carried out. Garriga wanted to emphasize that it has been drawn up for the first time jointly by the Ministries of Culture and Education with the participation of up to 180 people from a hundred public entities or from the cultural and educational sectors – coordinated by Montse Ayats –, and with specific objectives: that 76% of the population read a book per quarter (70.7% in 2022), that 65% read once a week (60.35% in 2022) and that 40 % of the population reads in Catalan (34.5% in 2022).
The Minister of Culture also wanted to point out that “it is the plan of constancy”, because she wants to “accompany people all their lives, from birth to old age”, when reading helps to “fight loneliness”. It is, he said, about “making it useful and making it possible”.
Simó wanted to emphasize participation in schools, but “we don’t have to work only with students, we also need the cooperation of families so that no one is excluded”. Among the proposals in the plan, Simó wanted to highlight the school library improvement plan, one of the most ambitious, which aims to ensure that 80% of Catalan schools have an active school library instead of the current 56%. According to Simó, it is necessary to “teach to read, teach to learn by reading and encourage good readers who enjoy reading”, while also wanting to “detect students who have barriers to access to books”. One of the objectives is to improve reading comprehension, in which the Pirls report placed Catalonia at the bottom of Europe, and to get the students with poor reading comprehension to go from the current 14% to 10%.
This improvement plan includes a first step in which 50 centers will receive professional support and training, as well as money to renew the funds, and after this pilot plan 200 centers will be reached to work on network improvement, which it will be expanded.
Among the prominent measures of the plan is the relaunch of the Born to Read program to promote reading among families with children aged 0 to 3 and which involves paediatricians, midwives and libraries, and which had been active between 2005 and 2011 .
Several of the initiatives are focused on the promotion of children’s and youth literature (LIJ), with the horizon set for the year 2028, when Catalonia will host the international congress of the IBBY (International Organization of Children’s Books), providing support at the Catalan Council for Children and Youth Books (IBBYcat) or by growing the Lletres a les Aules program, which regularly brings writers to schools and institutes.
In addition to a campaign to promote and encourage books and reading, there are measures aimed at improving the conditions of creators, identified as the most fragile link in the book chain, by increasing the endowment of scholarships, with a new line for to new authors, encouraging creative residencies or aid for publishing and promotion, this as well as developing the Casa del Llibre that puts an end to the temporary location of the three writers’ associations (AELC, PEN and ACEC) and becomes in a creative space.
