The Federal Parliament’s House of Representatives ‘House Standing Committee on Education and Training’ at the request of the Education Minister earlier this year conducted an “Inquiry into school libraries and teacher librarians in Australian schools”
The inquiry only went for a month with a brief Terms of Reference:
To inquire into and report on the role, adequacy and resourcing of school libraries and teacher librarians in Australia’s public and private schools. Specifically, the committee should focus on:
* the impact of recent policies and investments on school libraries and their activities;
* the future potential of school libraries and librarians to contribute to improved educational and community outcomes, especially literacy;
* the factors influencing recruitment and development of school librarians;
* the role of different levels of government and local communities and other institutions in partnering with and supporting school librarians; and
* the impact and potential of digital technologies to enhance and support the roles of school libraries and librarians.
Some time ago a submission in the form of a case study was sent to me. So far it has not been placed on the Inquiry’s website. I have been allowed to publish it so long as I de-identified it. It is looking at the repercussions throughout a small rural community because a librarian was not employed. Education and health literacy are essential in improving a person’s health. As the author of the case study wrote:
In many rural schools, the method for “closing the gap” appears to be to widen it!
Here is the case report.
This is a case study of a school in rural Australia. It is in a rural town of approximately 630 people, which is 200 km from the nearest regional centre. The school has 138 students with 99% of them being indigenous. The location is classed as “Very Remote” and the school is listed as disadvantaged.
The teacher working in the library as a teacher-librarian during 2009 was a temporary first year out PE teacher without specialist library training. The library collection was in need of upgrading, and the “teacher-librarian” began a deselection process in mid – 2009. She then left the school a few months later (when her temporary funding ran out) without finishing the deselection, or ordering replacement material. There was also a large backlog of needed new teacher resources, and the existing teacher resources were left uncatalogued and scattered in several locations.
None of the remaining staff had library training and the library fell into disuse and was closed. Students had no access to the collection. One of the school clerical assistants was interested in restoring the library to a usable condition, but lacked the skills and training to do so.
The school has been participating in career development programs with the primary health care team at a University Department of Rural Health located at the regional centre. One of the University staff involved was a trained librarian (although not working in a library at the time). With the assistance of this librarian, the school clerical assistant has received some very basic training and has commenced work on the collection (although the school library still remains closed as of April 2010). Further training on an informal basis is being arranged with schools in the regional centre. Strategies for the cataloguing, housing and updating of teacher resources are being investigated.
A teacher librarian has not been appointed, and there seems little prospect of this happening in the near future. A temporary teacher, appointed from May 2010, has shown some interest in the library situation, but is not a trained teacher-librarian, and is only funded on a term-by-term basis.
Information literacy skills are not being taught in the school, and lack of access to the library greatly inhibits the ability of the students to complete assignments. At the last census, only 27% of households in the town identified as having any Internet access, and there is no public library, meaning that alternative sources of information are unreliable at best.
The case highlights a number of areas of policy concern :
• Workforce issues are crucial in remote areas. These areas are often perceived as unattractive, and recruiting staff is difficult (for several months in 2008, the school also had no member of staff specialising in mathematics).
• Central schools are often seen as a low priority for allocation of specialist teacher-librarians (or other specialist teachers).
• School staff often cover other areas in a caretaker role. There is little formal support or training for staff in remote areas forced to be caretaker librarians.
• School libraries are often crucial in rural communities (and sometimes perform the dual function of also housing the public library). Where Internet provision is still unreliable, and there is no (or a very-part time ) public library, the school library can be the sole outlet for teaching information literacy skills. The skills of a trained teacher-librarian are crucial in these situations, but, in comparatively small rural schools, appointment of a teacher-librarian is often considered a low priority by educational authorities.
• Schools in remote areas and especially, in remote indigenous communities, often have lower levels then average of literacy and numeracy, and the school library is very important in efforts to “close the educational gap”. There needs to be staffing strategies which ensure continuity of school library staff in such communities, and to ensure that such staff have the skills to address the information literacy problems with which they are presented.
• School librarians have an important role in the provision, organisation and assessment of teacher resources. If this function is not fulfilled, then there is a flow-on effect which negatively impacts in all aspects of the teaching program. In rural schools with small resource budget, effective use of the limited financial resources is crucial.
• Education policy has a heavy emphasis on upgrading school facilities and buildings. Library resources and appropriate staffing are equally important if educational outcomes are to be achieved.
• The Closing the Gap strategy aims to reduce Indigenous disadvantage with respect to life expectancy, child mortality, access to early childhood education, educational achievement and employment outcomes. This can only be achieved if there is equal access to educational facilities and information literacy, A school staffing policy which denies remote and indigenous communities the benefits of trained school library professionals is a policy which will ensure the Gap in education will never be closed.
Tagged as:
Education,
libraries,
rural,
school
