Reading habit has declined in Sri Lanka

This Story tells us reading is declining in Sri Lanka due to lack of interest in reading and leisure. Is this happening in other countries?

\”The survey was conducted under the direction of Cultural and Religious Affairs Ministry. The report on the survey says that 63.7 per cent admitted that their reading habit has dropped. Most Sri Lankans are monolingual. Their principal language of communication is Sinhala, only 16.1 percent of them could read English and 0.9 percent Tamil. Of those who consider Tamil as their principle language of communication 35.4 percent could read Sinhala and 4.8 percent English.

This Story tells us reading is declining in Sri Lanka due to lack of interest in reading and leisure. Is this happening in other countries?

\”The survey was conducted under the direction of Cultural and Religious Affairs Ministry. The report on the survey says that 63.7 per cent admitted that their reading habit has dropped. Most Sri Lankans are monolingual. Their principal language of communication is Sinhala, only 16.1 percent of them could read English and 0.9 percent Tamil. Of those who consider Tamil as their principle language of communication 35.4 percent could read Sinhala and 4.8 percent English.

As for the purchase of books, the majority (around 72 percent to 85 percent) did not purchase any books during the last six months. Generally one out of ten had membership in a library. According to the survey, the reading habit has waned due to a variety of reasons including television high price of reading material and lack of facilities for reading.


The main objectives of the survey were to obtain data on the needs and tastes of the reading public, the manner and the extent of the utilization of a variety of reading material by different groups of people and to present the findings in a manner that could be used by educationists and policy planners for promoting the reading habit as a means of disseminating knowledge among people.