The National Literacy Strategy for All launched last year has proven to be an unprecedented effort to boost literacy levels in Malta, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said this morning.

Dr Muscat was speaking during a visit to the Luqa Primary, where local personalities who have been made reading ambassadors - as well as Dr Muscat and Education Minister Evarist Bartolo - read stories to children.

The literacy strategy had been launched last June, and a National Literacy Agency (NLA) was established within the Education Ministry to help implement it.

The strategy, which covers the years 2014-2019, includes a total of 138 policy actions, and NLA deputy chairman Charles Mifsud noted that 80 of these are already being implemented.

Prof. Mifsud noted that one of the initiatives, the Read With Me programme that seeks to promote literacy education in the first three years, has already reached 15,000 children, as well as their parents.

Dr Muscat pointed out that thousands more were being exposed to the "culture of reading" as a result of the strategy.

The Prime Minister acknowledged that the most recent studies confirmed that literacy levels in Malta were not adequate for a developed country.

But he added that while the strategy's effect may not be immediately evident, he was confident that an "unprecedented" effort to boost literacy would bear fruit.

Mr Bartolo, on his part, said that he recognised the link between reading and children's development. He also emphasised the importance of linking reading with fun, pointing out that many children unfortunately associated it with boredom.

Mr Bartolo and Dr Muscat also took the opportunity to point out that arrangements have been made so that the upcoming spring hunting referendum and local council election would create as little disruption as possible in schools, which are used as polling places.

The education minister said that he recognised that schools tended to panic when elections arrived due to the disruption the setting up of polling booths - as well as their dismantlement - caused.

He added that as a result, following discussions with the Electoral Commission and political parties - "because we know how paranoid political parties can be" - an agreement was reached on a set-up which is as quick to set up and dismantle as possible.

The event also saw Agenda Bookshop donate a number of copies of You Can Read, an English-language series aimed at encouraging children aged between 3 and 6 to read, to the Luqa Primary School as part of its efforts to boost literacy in the country.

All Year 1 students received a copy of the first part of the series, and the entire 12-part series is to be donated to the school to be used every year to encouraged reading.

The company is a sponsor of the ministry's reading ambassadors programme.