Reestablishment of school libraries in Mamelodi

Mamelodi is a township in the eastern side of Pretoria, the capital city of South Africa. It has a population of around +- 1 000 000. It has 15 high schools, 17 primary schools, 2 community libraries and 3 community/school libraries. There are different political and community organization that are operating in Mamelodi (SANCO, MACIS and ANC). After a survey conducted in the community, it was found out that there is a high failure rate in the matric level and after going to the schools, it was found out that there were no functional libraries and this might be part of the problems that adds to the failure rate in the community.

As part of our community engagement program at University of Pretoria (Mamelodi Campus), after identifying that there is a lack of functional libraries in schools, we identified all the high school in Mamelodi to investigate the lack of libraries in this schools and its implication on the performance of learners. Firstly, our first step was to conduct survey and visited all the 16 high schools and it was clearly visible that the state of libraries in the 15 high school is not up to standard as these libraries are used as storage facilities and only one high school has a functional library because this library is managed by the Tshwane Community Libraries. After the school visits, we arranged a meeting with all the principals to discuss the state of their libraries and if we can devise a plan to remedy the situation. We also arranged a meeting with the Gauteng Department of Education (L ibrary & Information Services) and we discussed the problems in schools and to decide on a way forward to revive the libraries in all the high schools in Mamelodi. We also had to come-up with a plan on how to market the idea to all the high schools so that they might be motivated to take part in this endevour. We came up with a plan to organize a competition in all the high school in the Pretoria region (D4) where all the school who have functioning libraries should compete by providing a 15 minute presentation on how they utilize their libraries successfully to enhance their results. We will arrange a workshop and all the schools who entered the competition will compete and also they will will erect displays to showcase their libraries. We will invite all the schools in the Pretoria regions (high schools) to attend and those that do not have libraries will have to identify one staff member to be present to represent their schools. The purpose of this workshop is to motivate those who do not have libraries to see how other schools which have libraries are progressing and this will motivate them to entise them to revive libraries in their schools.

After the workshop, GDE (LIS) will have to conduct a cost analysis of how much it will cost to rebuild all the libraries in the schools that do not have libraries and they will also identify a person to be equipped with skills to manage the library and this clearly indicates that they have to create a post of a qualified librarian to manage the library. After all this process has been completed, University of Pretoria will provide the training and development of all the identified personnel on library management and information literacy skills. The training and skills development will be an ongoing process so that all the school libraries are functional and sustainable.
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