HYDERABAD: Speakers at a conference on children’s literature have stressed the need for using modern means to unglue children from mobile phones, which seem to occupy most of their time, and called for establishment of a children’s academy or an adabi board dedicated to promoting children’s literature.

They said the techniques and approaches of presenting literature in a way that caught attention of people had changed and in case of children animated content and cartoons could be a powerful medium to grab their attention.

They were speaking at the two-day conference on Children literature in Sindhi language, new trends and requirement at Sindh Museum here the other day.

Sindhi Language Authority chairman Dr Ishaq Samejo said that one should be worried about diminishing scale of production of children’s literature that had been hit by price hike, increasing fears about the future of this genre of literature.

Speakers say ungluing young generation from mobile phones a must to save most of their time

He said that this very fear had prompted the authority to organise this conference. The children and their literature remained highly deprived sectors of society and one could easily predict what could happen to their literature amid such depressing conditions, he said.

He said that people must make collective efforts to save children’s literature. The government should establish bodies to create children’s literature and not only this but funds should also be allocated for purchasing such books, he said.

He said that people would have to decide that if they wanted to change society they would have to create in their children interest for books and magazines.

Hyderabad commissioner Nadeeur Rehman Memon said that reading culture had almost disappeared. Now modern ways must be adopted to involve children in book reading, he said.

Dr Adal Soomro, a noted poet of children, said that the conference was a serious step to promoting children’s literature and recalled that 25,000 copies of Gulan Jehra Baarara used to be sold away in the first week of the month and 12,000 copies of Gul Phul used to be published but it was no longer the case.

He called for the establishment of a children’s academy or adabi board to promote this genre of literature.

Prof Ayaz Gul said that an organisation for children might play an important role in polishing children’s literary skills. Many big literary figures were products of children’s organisations or magazines, he said.

He said that while ‘development’ was a buzzword today but creativity had come to an end. Unless programmes like this conference were held regularly or institutions were set up for training children nothing would change, he said.

Shaheed Allah Bukhsh Soomro University vice chancellor Prof Dr Bhai Khan Shar said that Hyderabad was a citadel of cultural and social gatherings, which always proved to be encouraging for children. Today, students showed no interest in reading while teachers remained disinterested, he said.

Sindh University’s pro vice chancellor Dr Rafiq Memon said that children could not be confined to one place. There was no institution that oversaw children’s education and training, he lamented.

SLA secretary Shabnam Gul said that society was also responsible for education and training of children.

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2022