UK-based Don encourages reading culture, targets 1 million African students

The Director of International Exchanges and Associate Professor at the University of Bath Management School, United Kingdom, Dr.Teslim Bukoye, has commenced a project targeting one million students in higher institutions to encourage a reading culture in the system.

The project, tagged ‘ReadCycle Bath,’ aims to reach students in universities, colleges, and schools in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East with books within seven years.

He stated that the project, which began in 2022, had already supplied thousands of books to some Nigerian universities and polytechnics, including Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria; University of Ilorin, Ilorin; University of Nigeria, Nsukka; and Federal University of Technology, Akure.

Other beneficiaries include Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti; Leads City Trinity University, Ibadan; and Federal Polytechnic, Offa, among others.

The academic, also a visiting Professor at FUTA, in a statement made on its one-year anniversary, said that incentives were placed in some books as part of efforts to inspire students to read.

He said, “We incentivize our reading culture by inserting a token of reward and words of encouragement in these books randomly, for lucky readers!

“ReadCycle Bath is motivated by my strong desire to give back globally. ReadCycle Bath has a mission to inspire reading/studying and sharing books for the global good.

“The idea is to create a global community that bridges the gap between those who have books to share and those who do not but are inspired to read.

“The goal is to reach a million students in seven years across universities, colleges, and schools in Low and Middle Income Countries, with Africa as our flagship project, then Asia and the Middle East.”

Bukoye further stated, “I am motivated by a strong desire to collate and ship books to countries where they would be utilized and valued, in line with the global Sustainable Development Goals – quality education (4), reduced inequality (10), and no poverty (1).”

“I am keen to see improvements in the students’ reading culture, [in addition to the use of social media], particularly for the current and future generations.”

“The opportunity came when colleagues at the University of Bath were willing to either downsize or support their textbooks as they moved to new offices. Thus, I saw the prospect to collate and ship these quality books to countries where they would be utilized and valued,” he stated.