Colorful books about animals, birds, plants and ‘moral’ tales hung from a rope tied to the wall of the classroom. ‘Didi’ (the teacher) took out a book and told her children to pick their desired books. It was library period and children knew it was ‘their time with books.’ They went up to the rope and picked out the ones they liked, and sat back on the floor to read. When the teacher had first entered the class, the children had been seated in their usual neat rows. But soon as they returned with their chosen books and got down to reading them, there was no place to put a foot down. Children were scattered in the room, some were reading individually while some chose to share and read. They sat in the corners of the room, side by side, back to back, encircled – each child with his or her own space.
* * *
The concept of a library is deeply connected with the physical availability of space. When we think of a library we imagine a dedicated space in which to access and read books. In many private educational institutions a library is an integral part of the infrastructure and curriculum, but not in many government run institutions. I say this from experience, working through an NGO over the last four years with around 200 schools in interior tribal villages of Keonjhar District, Odisha, on strengthening learning capabilities and the school governance system. Yet, in some of these schools, the project I have been involved with has helped parents, teachers and children to conjure up a ‘library’ through collaborative practice, in the absence of a ‘library period’ in the timetable and a dedicated space in the building.
A ‘library’ strung together
Government schools that I work with lack not just libraries but also basic infrastructure and human resources. Most primary schools have only one teacher to take care of three classes in one classroom[1] and one headmaster who is overburdened with non-academic work like Aadhar card making, voter card making, sending school data etc. The Right to Education Act (RtE) 2009 has provisions for government schools address the overall development of a child by including libraries in the infrastructure and curriculum. However these are not implemented in these institutions particularly in remote rural areas, like in the state of Odisha that I work in. These schools find it difficult to deliver the basic curriculum. With high drop-out rates and absenteeism, they also struggle with insufficient infrastructure. In the battle with core challenges, school authorities appear to develop an apathy towards the ‘peripheral’ library, paying lip-service without real action. Odisha is not alone in the library deficit. The ASER 2016 Rural findings report says “The proportion of schools with libraries has fallen from 78.1% in 2014 to 75.5% in 2016.” Clearly, this can restrict the overall development of students and withhold from them the opportunity to experience the joy of books.
Different spaces available or developed for library functioning
The lack of enough classrooms makes it difficult to have a ‘library period’ in the timetable – where do you hold it? With the lack of funds, inadequate infrastructure and weak interest of teachers in the library, books become a distant thought for the children of remote villages and thus the idea of fully functioning library classes is largely unknown.
To enhance the reading capability of children of these areas and to ensure access to good books a corporate organization is working in the field of educational development of the children in remote locations by donating books to all primary and upper primary government schools in the block. The challenge has been to reduce the gap between a book and a child when there is no library system setup in schools. The solution: classrooms become the temporary library space as the books are hung up with clothes-clips on ropes! All the books are on display, easily accessible for reading and borrowing. In the absence of a designated library period, representatives from the corporate house take responsibility to keep the classroom (within school premises) open for the children and the whole village on pre-specified day and time (typically Saturday afternoons) as library time. Children from one or more schools, their parents and other community people can access these books during this time.
Books within easy reach for children to make their own choices
The whole arrangement – the wall, the classroom, children, community and the library period itself – act as a space developed for promoting ‘time with books’ among children after school hours. Children come to school and choose their books and decide their own space to engage with books. Some children read books sitting there in the classroom, while many take books back to their homes promising to return them next week. In this more participatory system, children manage the issuing and return of books as well as the decorum of a library class through library committees. The committee takes overall responsibility for the proceedings of a library period running outside school hours on Saturday afternoons. That is when the whole school turns into a space governed by books and children.
Children coordinating library work
From Monday to Friday the library books rest inside the big trunk kept in the corner of the room. On Saturday afternoons, the classroom becomes lively with books ‘talking to you’ and the whole environment changes. On Saturday afternoons, children sit everywhere and anywhere–even on the trunk but mostly on the floor. When the room is stuffed full, noisier children like to sit in corridors and the open grounds of the schools. Some children are obsessed with a specific space for reading, while others search for silent corners, which even leads to squabbles. The dynamics of the reading space is mostly governed by children and keeps changing.
There are as many ways to read books as there are books!
This is a standard model implemented in all 200 schools to popularize books and the importance of reading for a child’s development. But, of course, the model doesn’t work the same way across all schools, varying with attitude, space, and institutional capacity. While the headmaster of a school decides space for library and books, children decide the operation of library though in other schools the project teachers take care of this. Some libraries take place on Saturday mornings in normal school time, where there is a room for a library, but this restricts ‘outsiders’ from accessing the books. When the library is conducted after school hours, of course, its space expands to the whole school allowing the outer world to access books.
Challenges emerge also at different levels of schooling. The primary and upper primary schools always run the library class under the project. If the didis are unavailable on that day then the children’s committee takes responsibility. But in middle and high schools a lot depends on the headmasters of the school. With headmasters under a lot of work pressure, the library falls off the priority list. While the account here shows how the absence of allotted space or time is sought to be overcome through innovative practices, both are actually very important to provide from the beginning if children are to get the real education that only reading can provide.
Bibliography
- Koontz, C., & Gubbin, B. (Eds). (2001). IFLA Public Library Service Guidelines. http://nppl.ir/wp-content/
uploads/IFLA-Public-Library- Service-Guidelines-3.pdf - Mahajan, P. (2010). School Libraries in India: Present-day Scenario. Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal). 371.http://digitalcommons.unl.
edu/libphilprac/37 - Bandhopadhyay, M. Present status of infrastructure facilities in schools in India: From national and state level perspective, Draft, Pp- 17 -22. http://www.dise.in/Downloads/
Paper_on_Physcial_Facilities_( Draft_prepared_for_CABE)_-_ Report.pdf - The Orissa Right of Children to free and compulsory education rule 2010, notification
- Rural Findings Report , ASER 2016. http://www.asercentre.org//p/
289.html - [1] Status of elementary and secondary education in Odisha, 2016-17, pp-11,17,18,25
[…] – out of character, through practice. Practice needs a physical space and a time, of course, as Khushbu Prajapati reminds us with the finding that neither of these is kept aside in either the building or the […]
Informative and connecting article
very nice Khushbu. Going great . Article is very good and well written.
[…] needs a physical space and a time, of course, as Khushbu Prajapati reminds us with the finding that neither of these is kept aside in either the building or the […]