Special Reading Initiatives
On the directive of the United Arab Emirates president, His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Cabinet approved the declaration of 2016 as the UAE Year of Reading because “reading is the basic skill for a new generation of scientists, intellectuals, and innovators.”14 The Cabinet also issued directives to prepare for an integrated national literacy strategy and a framework that will help produce a generation of readers and establish the UAE as the capital of cultural and knowledge content. His Highness has reminded citizens that the first verse in the Holy Quran is “Read” and that education and knowledge gained through reading will be a key factor in developing the UAE further.
In support of this directive, the vice president and prime minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, issued orders to implement immediately preparations of an integrated national literacy strategy and a framework to produce a generation of readers within the UAE. A committee has been established to manage and supervise the efforts of the Year of Reading, and to produce a comprehensive strategic plan and a national framework to encourage reading and trigger a “behavioral change” in all segments of the UAE community.
The 10 year National Strategy for Reading program aims to raise reading participation rates to 80 percent for students and 50 percent for adults. A commitment of AED 100 million has supported a reading festival in October 2016 and the first UAE Month of Reading in March 2017. In October 2016, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority and the Ministry of Education embarked on a joint survey of public and private schools in the UAE. The aim of this survey was to gain a greater understanding of citizens’ skills in and attitudes toward reading in order to support the UAE’s goal of creating a nation of lifelong readers who enjoy books and can contribute to a knowledge‑based society. At the time of writing this chapter, the results and their impact on the next steps of UAE Vision 2021, a national agenda with the goal of giving the UAE the status of one of the best countries of the world by 2021, had yet to be analyzed.