Bring innovative libraries to 100,000 Africans

TEACHERS AND LIBRARIANS PARTNER TO IMPROVE LIBRARIES AND THEIR USE IN ABUJA

Abuja is the capital city of Nigeria. Many high-quality schools situated mainly in highbrow areas of the city offer international, British, and Nigerian curricula, and they have good school libraries. Teachers and students in the city's suburbs face challenges due to a lack of supplementary and curriculum-based instructional materials and textbooks in English language and literature in their schools and libraries. For example, as students learn about the works of Shakespeare, a summary of Shakespeare's plays, which would better explain the subject matter of each play, the characters, and the plots involved, is not available in libraries. The absence of such books in public and school libraries directly correlates with lower student performance, as many students may be able to afford English and literature texts but not the supplementary texts needed to fully understand classroom lessons and prepare for competitive external examinations. When supplementary reading textbooks are not available, students lack robust engagement with taught subjects as well as the necessary tools for active learning. Also, the non-availability of supplementary instructional resources in public and school libraries affect teachers as they struggle to provide explanations and examples of the subject(s) matter they teach and the resources they can point their students to for additional reading. This makes teaching problematic as old lesson notebooks are used over and over again for teaching, and students do not have access to resources that would help them better understand what is taught.

Lawrence has been a librarian at the City Library of Abuja. Having worked for more than fifteen years as the librarian, he thought he knew what was needed to perform his duties effectively in the City Library, Abuja. He had the opportunity to be part of the 2^nd Cohort of INELI-SSAf in 2020. INELI-SSAf overturned all these assumptions. While going through the training, he noticed that beyond the skills being taught, there were mentors who kept on nudging them not to just imbibe the knowledge being imparted, but also to change their mindsets about what African public libraries could do to transform their communities and how to develop problem-solving techniques through innovative thinking. This built his confidence, and he began to view the entire community as possible partners for programmes and services in the library.

After the training and back to work, he met his superior officer and suggested that the City library tackle the challenge being faced by the English literature/English language teachers in Abuja’s public schools and the school libraries. The Ministry of Education and the School teachers were brought together in a workshop in the City Library to talk about the challenges and work together to develop solutions that would benefit the teachers, the students, their school libraries and the public libraries within Abuja.

The workshop featured talks from different stakeholders, including publishers, as well as readings of selected English texts. It was agreed that regular interactions should take place between teachers, the government, the libraries and stakeholders in the book industry.

The government agency in charge of public secondary schools in Abuja was made to understand the importance of curriculum-based and supplementary reading resources in English literature and English language in school and public libraries in Abuja. The agency agreed to the regular acquisition of such resources for the libraries. All the parties agreed that libraries, whether they are in the communities or schools, are an essential part of the learning infrastructure for young people. The teachers and other stakeholders supported the move to encourage students to visit libraries after school and during the holidays. It was a very successful interaction, and the decisions made are being implemented to this day.

Lawrence boldly confirmed that “Without INELI-SSAf, I would not have had the confidence and courage to approach teachers and the government agency in charge of secondary school education in Abuja to organise a workshop about an issue concerning libraries. We will continue to follow up to ensure that the books are constantly acquired and that students use the libraries after school and during holidays too”.

He enthusiastically advocates that all librarians in public and community libraries in Africa should participate in INELI-SSAf training to enable them to build confidence and learn innovative ways to provide library services to their users.

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