Appreciating Read With Me tutors in South Khorasan

Reading is the lost link in Iran’s Education chain

On Thursday 11 June 2015 a meeting was held in Birjand to appreciate the tutors of Read With Me program which was held in academic year 2014/2015 in association with The Institute for Research on the History of Children’s Literature (IRHCL), Yavari Cultural Community and South Khorasan Education Office. Reza Darman, Yavari Cultural Community chief executive, Maryam Akhgari, Program’s executive manager in South Khorasan Province, Mehri Safai, IRHCL’s expert, Lamei the Head of South Khorasan Education Office, Hosseini South Khorasan Elementary Education Administrative Assistant, SajjadiNejad the head of Birjand Education Office, Ghaemi Pre-School supervisor of South Khorasan province, other assistants and experts and 116 tutors and first-grade teachers were present in this meeting.

Darman and Hosseini, reminding the IBBY-Asahi Award nomination of RWM program, insisted on the necessity of reading culture development and increasing Time Spent Reading in the country. They also mentioned the goals of “Read With Me” program and introduced South Khorasan as one of the most important and successful provinces in executing RWM program.

Darman mentioned the final declaration of this year World Education Forum (May 2015) in Incheon, Republic of Korea. In this declaration which sets the visions of education goals and targets in the world in 15 years, one of the most important goals is set to “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” which is completely in accordance with RWM program.

Akhgari mentioned reading development among children, enriching the environment of classes with quality books, improving libraries in pre-schools and elementary schools in deprived areas and remote villages, indirect training and reaching the goal: “All children are entitled to read the quality books”, as the main goals of this project.

Then she explained the project in South Khorasan. “In the first year, Ghaennat and Nehbandan were involved in the project, this year Birjand, Khusf and Darmian also joined the project,” she said, “۱۵۰۰۰ books and 110000 activity sheet along with books were given to children. 46 Workshops were held by RWM experts for 125 teachers and tutors in Reading, Literature and Reading Aloud fields. Also last summer 31 village libraries were established along with teaching librarianship and donating 2840 books. The other important part of RWM is gathering the information and statistics of the project’s process from tutors to evaluate and improve the project.”

At the end she reminded that Reading is in schools’ syllabus around the world, “If we want a good student and a real human we must read books,” she added.

“We are in the third place in teaching the pre-school and elementary school children in the country,” Lamei, the Head of South Khorasan Education Office said, mentioning that South Khorasan is above many provinces though the lack of facilities, “it is not a one-person effort, it is done by a group.”

“Read With Me, is a lost link in education which had been ignored before, this project is being performed in 5 cities of our province by association of Yavari Cultural Community.

At the end of the meeting 116 teachers and tutors and other ones involved in the project were appreciated.

This post is also available in: Persian