The Responsibility Of Local Governments In Implementing Nationwide Reading Strategy

"To carry out nationwide reading activities" has been written into Hu Jintao’s report delivered at the18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and the "Government Work Report" of the State Department and has also been included in the National Basic Public Service System of ’Twelfth Five Year Plan" as well as special plans of culture, press and publication industries. Nationwide reading legislation has also been included in the country’s legislative plan. Promoting universal reading has risen to the national strategic level and has become an important national cultural project. However, the result of "Tenth Nationwide Reading Survey", released in April2013, shows that nearly half of the participants in the survey seldom read. Certain media exclaimed,"Half of our population don’t read." All sectors of the society strongly call on the government to take responsibility at all levels in promoting universal reading and improving national reading rate. As the central government attaches great importance to universal reading, what will be the responsibility of the local governments, and how to effectively propel universal reading? These are questions urgently need to be answered.The current thesis analyzes the measures taken by foreign governments in promoting universal reading and reviews the process of propelling universal reading in China. The thesis also points out that governments of all countries strongly promoting universal reading has become a global trend, for it is absolutely necessary in enhancing the overall quality of the people. The research is based on a case study of Hengshan County, it analyzes how much responsibility the local government has assumed in promoting universal reading and helps to identify problems and draw lessons from the past experiences. As for the problems of responsibility defects and undefined dudies, the thesis observes, from the height of the national strategic plan and the government’s cultural responsibilities and to answer for the urgent demands of the people, that the local governments should play a leading and responsible role in promoting universal reading. It also further clarifies the local governments’responsibilities in:working out nationwide reading plan, implementing support policies, building nationwide reading infrastructures, organizing nationwide reading activities, integrating reading resources, supervising and evaluating public reading services. As for the question how the local governments are going to fully perform their duties and effectively promote universal reading, the thesis also provide answers in terms of establishing mechanisms:to build nationwide reading coordination mechanism, to strengthen nationwide reading impetus mechanism, to innovate public reading service mechanism, to improve the objective assessment and incentive mechanism.