Gazette and the Bermuda National Library have launched a reading programme.

Ron Lightbourne, coordinator of the Newspapers in Education initiative, explained that students were encouraged to read a non-fiction and fiction book about countries and fill in the details in the passports.

Each child will be expected to include comments about the book, its title, and author.

They were also expected to find a newspaper article about a country from the same region, and write into the passport the dateline, headline, and by-line of the story.

"We're doing this to promote literacy,'' Mr. Lightbourne said. "It is to help them learn about the global society they live in.

"There was a delay in getting the passports in so the children have been issued `temporary visas' which they can now stick into the passports.'' Public and private school students can pick up the passports from their Language Arts teacher, the National Library's youth library on Church Street, and from Mr. Lightbourne at The Royal Gazette .

A list of books on countries suitable for the Reading Passport are also available from the National Library and from teachers.