UP government primary schools to have libraries

The Uttar Pradesh government has announced setting up libraries in all the 1.58 lakh government primary and upper primary schools in the state by March 2020.

Vijay Kiran Anand, Special Secretary in the Basic Education Department, said that the libraries will be set up in the schools by the start of the new academic session in the state.

He said that every government school library will be equipped with about 500-1000 books for which there has been a tie-up with the National Book Trust and the NCERT. He also added that the idea of setting up the school libraries is to incorporate reading habits among children from an early age.

Anand said that as part of the initiative, the basic education department has also asked the primary and upper primary schools in the state to establish reading corners in the school campus for the students.

Every school in the state will be allocating a time period during which the students will be allowed to go to the libraries and read books of their choice.

One of the officials of the basic education department stated that the department feels that reading will help in increasing the vocabulary skills of the students, besides being a fun activity too.

Anand said that several schools have already developed libraries of their own and, for almost a year, the teachers of the government-run primary schools in Uttar Pradesh are running a campaign "Donate Books for Children".

The campaign is run to motivate people to donate books so that the community libraries could be set up in schools for the benefit of the poor students along with others.

He pointed out that for a greater reach the teachers have taken the campaign to social media like Twitter with an account "Donate Books for Children" which has been created to spread awareness among the netizens.

Through the account teachers post photographs of those who voluntarily come forward to donate books to the schools.

Anand said, for example, Swaraj Pustak Bhandar, a bookshop in Jaipur, had agreed to donate 3000 books to at least 50 government schools in UP.

( With inputs from IANS )