How do you believe they will benefit by reading stories that are declared to be fiction meaning that the events never happened according to the authors claims
It is like reading a textbook for history class except the textbook writer claims the history never happened but you have to learn it anyway
Why?
So I originally posted fiction stories as a means to try to get around censorship that would happen if I posted certain information in non fiction form
But I still think it is bad policy to force people to reae stories about things that never happened and then test them on that knowledge especially when people could be studying information that is supposed to be true
They could double the hours teaching math for example instead and most people could have college degree level science
Good approach. That's another reason to encourage literacy.
I think it is bad policy to force people to do anything (some exceptions). That is one of the reasons that the classroom model is fundamentally broken.
Some non-fiction books on this subject you may enjoy are by John Taylor Gatto:
https://greathomeschoolconventions.com/blog/the-legacy-of-john-taylor-gatto