Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi has urged schoolchildren and their parents to dedicate at least 30 minutes a day to reading. Addressing the full hall at the Saxonworld Primary School during the province’s launch of the Drop All and Read campaign on Friday‚ Lesufi said: "If you don't read‚ those who read will lead you.”He said the decision to start the campaign was influenced by something he saw in China. “We noticed that in every public transport system‚ everybody reached to their bags and grabbed a book ... something that you'll hardly see in South Africa."Reading statistics indicate that only 14% of South Africans are readers of books and only 5% of parents read to their children.The MEC said that from next year‚ all primary schools in Gauteng will start reading in an additional African language.He said Gauteng would intensify the reading campaign through various programmes and activities."We are going to target strategic events in the country. We are going to target sporting events and also target and disrupt soapies on our television sets. We believe that we should declare one day one evening a reading evening instead of seeing kisses on our television sets‚" added Lesufi to a round of applause.According to the MEC‚ when the campaign was launched in October last year‚ about 750 000 pupils participated in it.A 2014 report by the United Nations Educational‚ Scientific and Cultural Organisation noted that 130 million children are in primary school but have not achieved the minimum benchmarks for learning‚ almost 120 million spend little time in a classroom and 57 million do not attend school. - TMG Digital..