A new chapter begins for kids in UP village
A women’s collective spearheads the community initiative to start a library at Marui village of Uttar Pradesh to enable their children gain comprehensive knowledge and holistic development.
In Marui village, a different kind of celebration marked this year’s Independence Day – the inauguration of a public library. The residents of the village, which falls in the Arajiline administrative block of Varanasi district, came together to set up the library on 15 August.
It was a matter of delight for the villagers that their community-led library was officially inaugurated on the occasion of Independence Day. It is a first of its kind initiative in the block as the library has been established with the help of the local women’s collective, supported by the pradhan (village head). It is also being run by the women’s collective, which consists of members of a village organisation and a self-help group (SHG), in addition to the other villagers.
Sensitising the community
It all started in March this year, when a general meeting was organised at the gram panchayat level. The regular executive committee meetings of the village organisations run by the women’s collective mostly involved discussions on financial aspects. The women had already envisioned livelihood and health initiatives, but the topic of education was never touched upon. So the subject did not figure in the operational and planning meetings at the cluster-level federations and village-level organisations.
The village had the physical infrastructure for a library but it was non-operational. The arduous task that lay ahead was to sensitise the community about the need for education and its role in setting up a functional library. For this, regular meetings and discussions on the theme of education were required.
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Community pitches in
It didn’t take too long for the villagers to understand that the library plays as big a role in the formal school education system as books and other learning materials. The women’s collective decided to contribute in whatever way they could. The villagers started collecting funds by themselves. Many of the SHG members made contributions.
In starting a library and making it functional, the following points were considered:
- Getting age-appropriate reading materials
- Ease and time of accessing the books
- Timings for the library to remain open
- The role of a librarian or facilitator
All the technical support was provided by Transform Rural India (TRI). We were actively involved in designing, selecting and procuring books and other essential items.
A committee comprising a chairperson, treasurer and secretary was formed to look after the management of the library. The pradhan is the patron while a member of the collective joins as a facilitator to look after the operational part.
Based on the inputs from the teachers of the government primary school in the village, it was decided to keep the library open during school hours so that they could visit the facility along with the children.
Why is a community library needed?
When a child starts to learn a language, four fundamental skills of language learning are required – listening, speaking, reading and writing (LSRW). But recent reports and studies show a cause for concern.
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According to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2022, based on a nationwide annual study done by Pratham Foundation, an organisation working to improve the quality of education in India, among students aged 6-14 years enrolled in government schools in class 3 to 5, the learning level of children who can read class 2-level text is just 34.90 percent. For classes 6-7, the learning level of children who can read class 2-level text is 63.4 percent.
As per the National Curriculum Framework 2023 (1.2.2-part b), “A school could also choose to make its library more open by extending it for the use of the local community after school hours. A school could also set up a part of the library outside the school premises, in a place that gives access not only to its students but to students of other schools, or other children and adults in the community.”
The framework further states: “Such initiatives can become lively and enriching centres especially when different people contribute books, periodicals and magazines towards the library collection. School alumni, youth and adults could volunteer to help early readers, by reading to them, organising story-telling activities or by managing the library resources. A community library could also serve as a space for students to study after school hours, get together and help one another with their homework.”
The National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy (NIPUN Bharat), a government initiative, mentions in its guidelines that “public libraries will be made an integral part of the teaching learning process.”
Potential of a community library
In the fast-moving and tech-driven society of today, engagement with books is going down. One of the favourable solutions in this scenario is community libraries. They can be planned at least for the block level.
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Policies need to emphatically endorse and advocate the role of libraries in the community as well as the school. The New Education Policy (NEP) 2020 states, “A key initiative in this direction will be to use schools/ school complexes after school hours and on weekends and public library spaces for adult education courses which will be ICT-equipped when possible and for other community engagement and enrichment activities.”
With the ongoing transformations, books and reading materials are highly required in digital forms as well. Foundational skills in reading and arithmetic problem-solving are necessary to achieve basic literacy and numeracy by 2025, as per the NEP.
Therefore collective and shared responsibilities are needed to set up such libraries and other platforms to achieve educational development in sustainable ways.
The lead image at the top shows children reading books at the community library in Marui village in Uttar Pradesh. (Photo from Canva)
Mirza Ayaz Beg is a development professional and researcher currently associated with Transform Rural India.
