By Oludamisi Ojo
Poor reading culture, lack of a functional library and watching football matches coupled with home videos have been identified as some of the factors leading to poor performance of students and their inability to defend their certificates nowadays.

Stakeholders in Ondo state at a forum were unanimous that libraries are no more used by students thereby reading cultures were no more in existence like before.

An educationist and retired headteacher from Ikare-Akoko, Chief Saliu Okoja noted that local government libraries, and public libraries are no more functioning probably due to a lack of patronage or lukewarm attitudes of the government to equip them with modern books and facilities

A retired Vice Principal, Adekunle Omola disclosed that internet and social media online education programmes are gradually eroding the importance of libraries.

Although many students are not using it to advance their studies rather they used them for sinister and dubious activities.

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The educationist agreed that many students reading abilities are very low compared with the olden days because they rely on cheating.

A parent, Alaba Ajongbade said parents have vital roles to play in guiding their children to read at home and attend to their homework assignments instead of watching home videos.

Ajongbade, a retired lecturer at Federal College of Education, Okene, Kogi state encouraged parents to pay money for extra lessons for the children to prepare them for examination.
They condemned the poor reading habits of present school children.