“Twenty Challenge” program in Kitengesa Library, Uganda

Kate Parry writes:

Dan Ahimbisibwe, the Kitengesa librarian, has just sent a report on the first month of the library’s “Twenty Challenge” program, which was in October. Nineteen secondary school students signed up for the “Challenge,” which meant that they undertook to try and read twenty books in the course of the month. They were promised a certificate and a small prize if they succeeded. Five of them didn’t make it, two because they were sent away for school fees, and one because she was ill, but of the fourteen who did make it, four read over forty books, one more than thirty, and five more than twenty! So it seems that they were really enjoying all this reading. Their English teacher also says he sees an improvement in their English, so now I’m planning a research project to try and quantify this improvement.