![Sample our Information Science journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5940/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Communication-Studies.jpg"})
Abstract
This paper explores the possibilities that well-functioning school libraries open up for enhancing the learning of students and their overall development. It presents findings from a study of a library program set up by a non-governmental organization (NGO) in select government high schools in two states of India. As a matter of coincidence, the NGO library program began in 2009, around the same time the government of India launched its library program for all secondary and higher secondary government schools as part of a central government scheme called the Rashtriya Madhyamik Siksha Abhiyan (RMSA). The paper, therefore, also discusses, and contrasts, the approach adopted by the two programs and examines the outcomes from both in order to highlight a model of school library that could maximize benefits for students of publicly funded schools in a developing country. The qualitative data collected through semi-structured interview schedules, observation schedules and an open-ended questionnaire, in the form of student activity sheets, provides a vivid picture of the immense potential that school libraries hold for catalyzing positive academic and attitudinal changes among students as well as teachers. The paper discusses too the reasons why the potential of school libraries is not always adequately mined and suggests ways forward for building effective school libraries.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Within the Indian context the students enrolled in the State government schools are predominantly students from disadvantaged sections such as the Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), Other Backward Classes (OBCs). As described by the BREAD Society, these students have neither the purchasing power to buy books nor access to books (BREAD Society, n.d.).
2 The two states where BREAD set up its libraries were in fact a single political and administrative unit when BREAD Society launched its program in 2009. Following an Act of the Government of India in 2014, the undivided state was bifurcated, resulting in the formation of two states. BREAD libraries therefore continue to function in both the states.
3 Under Section 2 (e) of the Right to Education Act, (The Right Of Children To Free And Compulsory Education Act, Government of India, 2009) a “child belonging to weaker section” means a child belonging to such parent or guardian whose annual income is lower than the minimum limit specified by the appropriate Government, by notification. The erstwhile state of Andhra Pradesh has fixed the income ceiling at Rs. 60,000/-.
4 The state of Andhra Pradesh was bifurcated into two states - Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, in 2014. The study does not take into account the bifurcation of the state since the BREAD Society had embarked upon the process of setting up libraries in the government schools from 2008 onwards in undivided Andhra Pradesh such that libraries were set up in schools of all the districts of the state.