It hasn’t been a surprise to many that reading rates have been dropping steadily over a consecutive number of years. In September of last year, high school SAT scores reached the lowest that they ever had been for the past four decades. This meant that there was a punctuating mark on present-day college bound students to read passages and comprehensively answer questions concerning the passages. But this isn’t a problem that only affects Unites States students or those in the American school system; it has also greatly impacted the reading patterns of students in Kenya.
African writers and literary critics have been stating for years that African students are 
reading less and less for leisure. Recently, the author of an opinion column published by the Daily Nation insisted that medics and poets deserved the same amount of pay since it didn’t matter the profession, but the skills and passion each person brought to their vocation. Unfortunately this is not the mindset of a lot of Kenyan students, along with other global students. “People don’t care too much about reading, and, like, the arts and stuff because that’s not where a lot of energy is channeled at school,” Chiru Kamau tells me. She is a 10th grader at West Nairobi and .wants to become a neurosurgeon. While she doesn’t dislike reading, she can see why reading rates are dropping.
“More and more people are looking into careers that are math and science heavy, so in school they’re encouraged to pursue classes that really focus on things like that. It’s not like you go home and think, ‘oh, I think I’m just gonna take a break from calculus and read some Hemingway or something.’ ” And even though she laughs, it’s an issue that not only affects kids but also the teachers. In American universities, on the whole, English and Fine Arts professors typically get paid significantly less than those who teach classes such as Engineering or Statistics. While the pay scale may take in to account years of experience, passion, or general knowledge on the subject, two teachers may have the same teaching experience and level of education, but if one teaches a literature analysis course and the other teaches a college-level physics course, the physics teacher has a chance of getting more at the end of the month.
This, however, is not the fault of either teacher nor is it the fault of the students. It’s a direct reflection of our society and the kind of blue-collar workers that are intended to be made by schools. There is no argument that the 21st-century global village is one that is very technologically centered. In order to keep it running as efficiently as possible, there needs to be an influx of scientific, technological, and mathematically inclined workers; that is what schools are required to cultivate. Though many schools, such as Rosslyn, have put a lot of work and attention to their arts and English departments, the students are invariably being told by colleges and the media that degrees in math and science not only pay better, but they also are the highly competitive fields that define our generation. It is not an easy idea for those who have devoted their lives intentionally to equipping students with reading skills to swallow, but it seems to be constantly reinforced as more and more students turn to math and science courses and ditch their Hemingway.
– Milkah K
THE YOUNG INTERNATIONALIST ~ Seeing the World with a Global Perspective 