Reports that Aung San Suu Kyi accused schoolchildren of too much time online rather than reading have generated a lot of attention over the past couple of days.
Speaking in a video message to a literature festival posted online on Sunday, the politician was quoted by newswire AFP as saying: “Now our children waste a lot of their time on computer games, internet games and social networks. Children read less because the use of technology has increased.”
The remarks were, of course, shared widely on social media, with some translating the phrase as “spending” rather than “wasting”.
Either way, taking the words in the context of her entire message, the intent was fairly clear. Here’s the whole speech, as per our translation:
“I am very glad to know that this festival is dedicated to children.
In our schools, there are almost no libraries. There is no time to study literature in school time. There are neither books nor literature near students. As the education system is by rote-learning, there are restrictions on ideologies and critical thinking in addition to school study.
It is really sad that our young students are far away from literature. And cities, villages and blocks with libraries are really rare.
Our young people can hardly read and learn literature as books are hard to access. Nowadays, we have advanced technologies which can affect our daily lives. Now our kids are spending most of their time playing computer games, internet games and on social networks. Young people have less time to read as the technology advances.
That’s why we have to try to have libraries in towns, villages and quarters. Moreover, it is important to publish and write books for children to increase their tendency to read. I like to support to increase books for children when the literature festival for children is going on.”
