Our public school textbooks need a companion anthology

Point of view

- By JERIC OLAY

As I read the life accounts of some of my favorite writers, I noticed a recurring reason why they developed a love for reading at a young age. They either had a mini library at home or a relative lent them books. This access to books, I'd like to point out, did really cut ice.

I can't help but imagine our students in public schools enjoying the same advantage. We often complain that our students today don't read, but even with programs meant to encourage them to read, do they have books within their grasp?

In 2024, the Department of Education (DepEd) implemented a national reading program, aptly named Catchup Fridays. One shortcoming, however, and ironic as it may seem: no book was released exclusively for it. It was like marketing the benefits of reading but failing to provide the students with something good to read. For the record, the program was already terminated.

Producing a new kind of book, not a module, for whatever program to promote reading is both reasonable and practical. Yet producing alone does not suffice. The type of text selected for the book isn't something to be downplayed. This time, the content is the real deal.

DepEd might take inspiration from that kind of book distributed to public schools in the postwar years. Judging from its content, the book was an anthology. It was about the size of half a standard bond paper but jam-packed with "good literature." Well, it's good because the prose came from Filipino writers prominent in the era.

The selections, I've noticed, were not very long, which I suppose was deliberate. Back then, I'd complain when our high school teacher gave us a short story for our reading report, but the story appeared to be very long. How can it be short when it runs for pages? I'd protest in private.