A partnership agreement has been signed between the City of Hafnarfj\u00f6r\u00f0ur, representatives of Homes and Schools in Hafnarfj\u00f6r\u00f0ur, and the Minister of Education and Culture on a national initiative for children's and young people's literacy.<\/p>\n
At the signing of the charter, R\u00f3sa Gu\u00f0bjartsd\u00f3ttir, chair of the education committee, emphasised that reading needs to be enjoyable.<\/p>\n
\u201eIn my opinion, it is a major task to try to reach people \u2013 the children, their parents and others \u2013 so that a real awareness of the importance of reading and literacy is raised in society, and how much fun it is to read! Because the focus shouldn't just be on children reading for academic benefit; the fun aspect of reading needs to be promoted. Reading needs to become a bit of a trend, and it should be exciting to be able to discuss books and what happens in them, just as they often do after watching films or television programmes.\u201c<\/p>\n
With the National Covenant, the parties to the agreement commit themselves to working with all available means to achieve the set target for literacy, which involves increasing the proportion of those who meet the basic PISA reading proficiency standard from 79% (2012) to 90% in 2018.<\/p>\n
The National Pact fits well with the project READING IS LIFE'S GAME, which has been running in Hafnarfj\u00f6r\u00f0ur over the past few terms, and the Education Council subsequently wishes to promote general awareness in the town of the importance of reading in support of the literacy project and, at the same time, the national pact.the national covenant.<\/p>\n