A new announcement from the Danish Government offers a bold solution to address declining national reading rates.
Governments around the world are implementing policies to increase reading rates, with the latest announcement coming out of Denmark.
The Danish government has just confirmed it will abolish a 25% sales tax on books, in an effort to combat a “reading crisis”.
This move comes off the back of recent data showing that a quarter of Danish 15-year-olds cannot understand a simple text.
Culture Minister Jacob Engel-Schmidt said in an interview with the BBC that removing VAT on books was not a complete solution, but it would make books “more accessible”.
The government’s working group on literature also looked into ways to export Danish literature, the digitalisation of the book market and the impact on authors’ pay.
The news follows the recent announcement of a National Year of Reading in the UK, and a commitment from leading publishing bodies in Spain to collaborate on a reading framework.
Australia Reads supports this major move by the Danish Government and will continue to advocate for large-scale investment in books and reading in Australia.