School libraries need more than textbooks

Sometimes in the 1990s, the members of Kirinyaga District Education Board (DEB), the predecessor to the County Education Board, visited a school library in a Boys’ Secondary school in the area.

The members of the Board, led by the then-District Commissioner, Mr Francis Sigei, inspected the school to establish the causes of the dismal performance of secondary schools in KCSE examinations. The school was among others the members of DEB visited with the same purpose.

As Chairman of the area DEB, Sigei, insisted on visiting the schools’ libraries, saying the usage of school libraries supports the curriculum and programs of schools. The library, Sigei argued, determines how well teaching and learning is taking place in a school.

The officials entered the library and found many books sprawled on the floor with termites eating some of the books.

Evidently, the students did not use the library. The explanation that the school authorities gave was that the books were irrelevant to the syllabus.

I had accompanied the officials in my capacity as the area District Information Officer. I sneakily looked around bookshelves. Notwithstanding the neglect, the books had been carefully classified according to subjects. I saw very good books on all the basic science disciplines, History, Literature, Geography, Religious studies, Economics, and music.

The library had books on all the learning areas that the Ministry of Education prescribed, including encyclopaedia Britannica and Bible commentaries.

These were Books that formed the staple of extensive reading by students in the 70s, 80 and 90s. Interestingly the authorities didn’t find them useful to the syllabus, thereby neglecting the library altogether.

Looking back, the school authorities were lenient. They had left the books intact, although neglected.

Disturbingly, most school administrations today have removed such books from the library. They have replaced them with textbooks, revision or guidebooks. The only books that remain—books that were not written with the curriculum or syllabus in mind—are novels and plays that were once set books but the Ministry of Education has replaced them with others.

Pure textbooks have replaced novels, plays, anthologies of poetry, and prose essays. Coursebooks have taken up the shelves that atlases, encyclopaedias, biographies, books on science and technology, books containing letters famous people wrote to friends, speeches and other creations of the human mind once occupied.

This is odd. With a 1:1 textbook to learner ratio, stocking the school library with textbooks is redundant. The school already has the books students require; there is no need to go to the library for any book.

The replacement of books with textbooks in the school library is unfortunate. Education policy and standards contemplate instructional materials specially designed for the prescribed curriculum and also general books for extensive reading.

The curriculum is drawn from a universe of knowledge for the purposes of instruction of learners in the limited time they have in their educational journey. The curriculum is a kind of introduction to the intellectual and cultural heritage of mankind. The Curriculum exposes learners to the fund of knowledge, skills, attitudes and values that mankind has accumulated over the ages: to understand himself and the environment and then use that knowledge to lead a worthwhile life.

The library normally contains books by great thinkers, sages, statesmen and stateswomen and acknowledged specialists on various aspects of life. These books raise and try to answer questions about life and living. A leisurely reading of such books makes students think and explore issues that mankind continuously grapples with in season and out of season.

The reading of such books—away from the syllabus—is an invitation to understand the unending conversation that has been going on about life and its mysteries and pains. A deeper appreciation of life is gained through these reading adventures.

This is the reason why books in the library should be totally different from textbooks, revision books or guidebooks.

The school library should be conceptualised as an intellectual space where teachers and children can expect to find the means to deepen their knowledge and imagination.

Most textbooks are written to convey information and facts, rather than make children think and explore. Exclusive dependence on them denies students access to the primary sources of knowledge to stretch their intellectual curiosity, imagination and creativity.

Indeed, Ernest Boyer, an American Educator observes in his fifteen-month study entitled, High School, A Report on Secondary Education in America, The Carnegie Foundation for Advancement of Teaching: “Most textbooks present students with a simplified view of reality and practically no insight into the methods by which the information has been gathered and facts distilled.

Moreover, the textbooks seldom communicate to students the richness and excitement of the original works. When students are privileged to read the primary sources, they meet the authors personally and discover events first hand.”

Boyer, accordingly, recommended that students make use of original sources even as they rely on textbooks.

The only place students can access original sources of information or knowledge is the school library which should be stocked with books and not textbooks.

The greatest advantages secondary schools’ missionaries and the colonial government established before and immediately after independence was that they had libraries stocked with great books in the humanities, social and natural sciences.

Students who got admitted into these schools had the opportunity to read all manner of books in these libraries—books that had intellectually more challenging stuff and which raised looked at concepts, ideas in their multiple hues.

The students emerged from the then Kenya African Preparatory Examinations (KAPE), Certificate of Primary Education, Cambridge examinations, and “O” and “A” level examinations—the latter from the early 70s up around mid-90s—with a refinement in thinking, attitudes, values, and reading and writing skills that impressed everyone particularly.

All this was because of a strong school Library service supporting and promoting high-quality reading and learning opportunities for all. A school library, well stocked with appropriate books, is the heartbeat of quality teaching and learning.

The vision of a school library and that of the curriculum are consistent with each other. School libraries support the goal of the school to grow a community of enthusiastic readers by making accessible a wide range of different reading material that reflect both the learners’ interest and their reading abilities.

The interests of the learners and their reading abilities are consistent with goals of educational policies and standards, whichever words embody the goals and standards. They help students to gain new knowledge, skills, and personal development that they will use throughout their lives.

The realities of life exert enormous pressures on educated people. The knowledge, skills and other armaments they need to withstand the pressures of life are found in the books that professional librarians and educationists recommend that they grace the shelves of school libraries—for students to read as part of their education.

Restricting students to textbooks alone—important as they are in teaching and learning is, clip their wings. Yet the dynamics of globalization, knowledge society requires men and women who are not only widely and well-read but continue to read widely.

Removal of books from the school library is not the best way of preparing students for the vagaries of life. Grades, however topflight, without the background knowledge and associated skills, attitudes, values and habits of thinking that students get from general books is to limit the potential and life chances of students.

Kennedy Buhere Communications Officer, Ministry of Education