Amid concerns that screens have squeezed out print reading, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan have mandated newspaper reading in schools, while educators nationwide have launched a parallel movement to reverse the trend.
Many educators have welcomed the December directives from the two state governments, which ask schools to ensure that students read at least one English and one Hindi newspaper daily, citing the potential benefits to literacy, critical thinking and cognitive skills.
“For some purposes, newspapers have an edge over any other printed reading materials,” said Elango Kandan, chief executive chair of the English Language Teachers Association of India (ELTAI).
“They deal with the here and now, they expose readers to diverse topics, and they encourage the skim-and-scan reading strategy.”
Kandan said reading strategies needed to be tailored to content. Textbooks, he said, demand “intensive” reading, necessary for academic studies and in-depth learning, in contrast to the skim-and-scan strategy typically adopted by newspaper readers.
“The skim-and-scan strategy has been shown to boost cognitive processing and literacy skills,” said Nalina Singh, assistant professor at Amity University in Lucknow.
The policy push by the two states follows concerns, driven by anecdotal evidence and small-scale surveys, that newspapers play uneven and marginal roles in students’ lives, overshadowed by textbooks and digital content.
The move also coincides with a broader movement, India Reads, launched in 2023 by the ELTAI — a body of about 5,000 English educators — to cultivate reading habits beyond textbooks among school and college students.
Some surveys, though limited by small samples, pointto wide variation in newspaper reading habits among youth across regions anddemographics.
A survey of 137 undergraduate and postgraduate students in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, found that just 4.4 per cent prioritised reading newspapers or magazines.
Other surveys have suggested a stronger engagement with print in specific contexts.
A study of 36 university students in Gujarat found that 80 per cent read newspapers regularly to keep abreast of current affairs, crucial to cracking competitive examinations. A survey of 50 women in Hyderabad found that 48 per cent read newspapers daily and about a third, once a week.
Beyond reading habits, researchers say how students engage with text, too, matters. Studies have suggested that on-screen reading leads to inattentive reading, even when the tasks require sustained attention for efficient information processing.
A 2021 study by educational psychologist Ladislao Salmeron and collaborator Pablo Delgado found that inattentive reading contributed in part to “shallow information processing” and lower comprehension.
More recently, Salmeron and colleagues reviewing research on the subject found that readers’ comprehension was slightly better when they read text in print rather than on a handheld device.
“In-print reading can be considered an efficient way to promote students’ text comprehension,” they wrote in a 2024 study in the Journal of Educational Psychology.
Experimental research, too, has linked constant smartphone interruptions to higher levels of inattention. A Canadian study found that students who kept phone notifications on reported more difficulty focusing than when the alerts were switched off.
A girl reading newspaper with her glasses.
To counter the trend towards screen reading, educators advocate structured print reading, such as reading newspapers, arguing it can help train attention andfoster more effective reading strategies.
Readers worldwide are shifting from print to digital, but India faces a steeper challenge because of its low baseline reading levels, said Shravan Kumar, professor and dean of liberal arts at K.R. Mangalam University in Gurgaon and national coordinator of the India Reads campaign.
“We need this India Reads movement because India does not read — the reading habit is essential if, as a nation, we want to avoid an erosion of intellect,” Kumar said.
About 150 institutions across multiple states have joined the initiative, which promotes age-appropriate, bilingual and self-motivated reading.
While the campaign is growing, educators acknowledge the hurdles it faces.Disinterest among students and institutions poses challenges, they say, but theorganisers are continuing to press ahead.
“We do not impose books on our students,” Singh said. “The goal is to introduce students to a range of books and let them discover the joy of reading for themselves.”
In line with that approach, the India Reads movement’s book list has titles ranging from anthologies of shortstories, comics and graphic novels to biographies as well as mystery, horror and self-help titles.