Modern libraries unlocking the doors to knowledge
By peter.ngila, June 23, 2023The Kenyan and international communities have for a long time been working together to put books in the hands of primary and secondary school learners.
Jedidah Chelangat Makokha, a teacher at St Stephens Mulwanda Secondary School’s Digital Library in Kakamenga County, is one of the librarians helping drive reading culture in Kenyan schools. “Our school library started in February 2016 as a small room for keeping books.
In 2018, the school administration moved us to another reading room capable of hosting five students at a time,” Chelangat, who in early September is set to complete a six-month online certificate course in Information/Library Science recalls.
Since joining the school in January 2016, Chelangat says that the school administration has installed Wi-Fi in the library for research purposes by students and teachers. Before the launch of the digital library on June 29, 2022, the administration also ensured that teachers who used to sit in the facility were moved to the main office.
“In our library, we stock books for all 11 subjects from Form One to Form Four. We stock Kiswahili and English set texts and other books of all disciplines ranging from motivational, technology, graphic novels, biographies, autobiographies, art and crafts, event organisers manuals, farming, dictionaries and walled maps. We also have computers and games such as chess, puzzles, scrabble, four in arrow, map game, domino, kumiliki and tumble tower,” Chelangat says.
She adds that the students are allowed to borrow books and other learning materials for a period of seven days.
Falling for books
At least 200 students (around four classes) frequent the Digital Library every day. Chelangat believes that since 2022, her school’s reading culture has greatly improved due to a favourable reading environment. This has in turn boosted academic performance.
Chelangat, whose favourite books include Beyond the Limits and The Near Perfect Leader by Mercy Njoki and is currently reading How To Become CEO: The Rules For Rising To The Top Of Any Organisation by Jeffrey J Fox, remembers falling for books in her schooling days.
“Soon after joining Iltilal Primary School, Kajiado on December 28, 2016, I volunteered to serve as a teacher librarian,” Ronald Kenagwa Mogusu recalls.
Mogusu reveals the school library stocks African story books, curriculum course books, fiction and non-fiction books, charts, computers and play toys.
“The school reading culture is usually guided by our philosophy, which states, ‘Reading at Will’. It simply means that pupils are always encouraged to read without supervision,” Mogusu says.
“The limited library space has forced some learners to read under trees in groups and also voluntarily come to school during weekends to read. The rate of pupils borrowing books has gone up.” Mogusu notes that, thanks to the library, the school’s academic performance has improved from a mean score of 230.39 in 2014 to the last year’s (2022’s) 329.78.
“Pupils are allowed to return borrowed books after two days. We usually have a writing competition every two weeks with a reward and a badge to the best creative writers. We also have an active book club led by the Library Student Council,” Mogusu reveals.
The game changer
These two schools are part of libraries started in 12 Kenyan counties by Knowledge Empowering Youth (KEY), a Canadian-Kenyan charity initiative focused on comprehensive, responsive, content–based systematic school library rollouts.
Since KEY was introduced to St Stephens Mulwanda Secondary School by Dr Philip Arunga in March 2022, Chelangat hasn’t forgotten the organisation’s resourcefulness.
“To be honest, what we had before KEY came to our school was a store, not a library. KEY furnished the entire library room with shelves, tables, reading chairs, an interactive board, computers for the students, couches for the reading corner, metallic bookshelves and books from all walks of life,” Chelangat says.
“Students have been enthusiastically frequenting the library. Being the only library of its kind in the entire western region, scholars from within and outside also come to us for benchmarking,” Chelangat wraps up.
On his part, Mogusu testifies that KEY’s presence in his school has changed the learning atmosphere for the better, has improved the pupils’ communication skills and has contributed to better academic performance, especially in languages.
“KEY held the Kenyan School Librarian Conference in Nairobi in April 2023. The lessons I learned during the conference will help my learners develop life-long reading culture and also improve their academic performance,” Mogusu says.
KEY head librarian Nyakundi James Nyambane clarifies that though they usually handover library projects to schools, they usually follow up on the libraries.
“We do annual monitoring and evaluation of the project to see if it (the project) is meeting the set goals. We also do regular school visits to assess how best we can make the library functional throughout the year — even during the holidays. KEY always provides ongoing support including capacity building activities and opportunities for the librarians we work with and even beyond,” Nyakundi says.
He reveals some of the organisation’s challenges as the absence of clear government policies that enforce the idea of schools to have a functional library managed by a qualified librarian.
“With the current education reforms and introduction of Competency Based Curriculum (CBC), school librarians are required to provide more reference services not only to students, but also to the teachers and the communities,” he says.
KEY CEO and Founder, Rita Field-Marsham clarifies that the organisation works with schools, which have the necessary and sufficient conditions to fit the firm’s scale-up plan.
“Each new library we provide has to generate fresh value and the budget should be within marginal range or reduced cost. We should also be able to fund the library, and there should be cooperation and accountability for the operations of the library after we hand it over,” Rita says.
Rita Field-Marsham also highlights the importance of technical tools such as computers with preloaded information to make them useful even without an internet connection or a teacher. She also adds that digital chalkboards help motivate learners to spend time in libraries.
The KEY CEO and Founder dreams that one day, every school aged child in Kenya will have access to a library.