Maravi

Scarce library facilities in rural areas worry Kanchebele

Scarce library facilities in rural areas worry Kanchebele
By Mwala Kalaluka
Friday December 14, 2007 [03:00]

Kawambwa district commissioner Wilbroad Mumba has said improved library facilities in rural areas will help keep teachers at their stations whilst pursuing advanced distance education courses. And Luapula Province education officer, Florence Kanchebele, has bemoaned the scarce library facilities at both institutional and public levels in the country.

During a handover ceremony for books donated to Kawambwa Public Library and Mwense High School by the United States (US) Embassy in Zambia on Tuesday, Mumba said the lack of relevant books and proper instruction materials was the major challenge in rural-based teachers’ efforts to pursue higher education.

Mumba said he appreciated distance education courses that most of the teachers in the district were pursuing because it allowed them to advance their educational interests without abandoning their job responsibilities at their respective stations.

“The lack of instructors and lack of books is the only challenge,” he said. “The appetite for reading is quite explicit in both school leavers and non-school leavers.”

Mumba said however, that the existing stock of books was not adequate to meet this increasing reading appetite.

“We need to have concerted effort to address this problem because the Ministry of Education, as a parent ministry, will not be able alone to provide us with a library,” he said.

“That is why I am urging the steering committee to go out and fundraise for a new modern library in Kawambwa.”
Kawambwa New Library Steering Committee member Eugene Morais said reading went a long way in helping people educate themselves and should therefore be encouraged.

And in a speech read on his behalf by district education board secretary Paul Kafwanka, Kanchebele said although almost all basic schools had received small collections, there were no libraries in government basic schools.

“Most secondary and high schools have no libraries and there are no trained librarians,” she said. “The almost total absence of libraries in schools and districts in our province means that education tends to become equated to the contents of the text book or with what the teacher expounds.”
Kanchebele noted that ambitious plans to have pupils take charge of their own learning would come to nothing without proper library facilities.

The public library in Kawambwa was opened on September 11, 1989.

Labels: LIBRARIES, RURAL AREAS

posted by MrK @ 7:34 AM