“It is possible to prevent children and young people from engaging in terrorism if they are encouraged to read books from a young age…compassion and empathy will be hard to come by unless we empower our children with books,” Alif Laila Book Bus Society president Basarat Kazim said.
Kazim advocated the need to develop a provincial strategy to open libraries in primary schools across Punjab at a consultative dialogue held on Wednesday. The event was organised by the ALBBS in collaboration with the USAID. The participants focused on developing an outline for an interactive policy for the development of primary school libraries in the Punjab.
Kazim said it was unfortunate that most children were deprived of reading books other than the ones in school curricula. “We can change the attitudes and perspectives of children by empowering them with books,” she said, “and in a society like ours, already threatened by poverty, illiteracy and terrorism, it is all the more important to do so.”
ALBBS vice president Rabia Khan shared details of one of their projects under which libraries at 50 primary schools in the province were being provided each with 1,000 books and two cupboards. She said the books included dictionaries, resource books, stories and art books for children. Khan said results from a survey carried out before and after the project revealed that most of the children had never seen their parents read books at home. But after the project, she said, many children not only read the books but also promoted them among their peers and siblings. “Once they were issued books from the libraries, they took them to their homes where even the adults read them,” she said.
“Reading should not be confined to achieving academic excellence but also leisure and fun,” she said. Khan said libraries for primary schools were missing in the strategy for primary education in the country.
Headmasters of elementary schools in Multan, Sheikh Bashir Ahmed and Chaudhry Mohammad Nadeem, said enrolment at their schools had even risen after the ALBBS project. Ahmed said enrolment in his school had risen because children wanted to listen to stories read out in the libraries as part of the project. But, Nadeem said, it was also vital to understand the basic needs of children enrolled in these schools. “Most belong to poor households…there is dire need to understand what can be done to attract a hungry child towards education and learning.”
Project adviser at the Japan International Cooperation Agency, Chiho Ohashi, said reading should not only be viewed as a tool to promote education. “It also promotes culture and an understanding of various aspects of life.”
She said at schools in Japan, libraries were an essential component. “Why should the ‘dull’ side of education only be highlighted? The fun and interesting aspects of reading should also be promoted.”
Speaking on the Reading Improvement Strategy, a component of the Chief Minister’s School Reform Roadmap, Pakistan Reading Project in Punjab Head Kamran Iftikhar Lone said besides government schools, there were several low-fees private schools that did not have libraries. He said the USAID-funded project aimed to revive the culture of reading in the country. He said teachers should also benefit from the in-service library training modules that would help address the issue of promoting reading habits among primary school children.
The deputy secretary of planning and budget at the School Education Department said €2 million had been allocated for a library project under which books had been provided to 11,000 schools across the province. He said each school was given 100 books. “What remains to be seen is whether the school administration allows children access to these books…teachers should also help the government take these initiatives forward.”
He urged parliamentarians to allocate a block grant of Rs50 million to Rs100 million in the upcoming budget for libraries.
Chairman of the standing committee on education, Qamarul Islam Raja, said the committee had planned to include libraries in the Right to Education legislation, which was still pending. He said the process for legislating the Right to Free and Compulsory Education in India took nine years. “We may not be able to meet all our education targets for 2015 but we are trying and the progress is slow but success evident.”
Published in The Express Tribune, March 13th, 2014.