The Power of Reading

Each of my five schools has a library. For 3 of the schools, that's about as much as can be said for them. There is a room that's called a library, which contains some books. It's nothing like the sacred place that was the Harare Municipal Library for me growing up. There are books, but because the children have mostly never seen a book before arriving at school, they are stuffed onto shelves in whatever way was most convenient for the student before he raced off to class. There are books, but they are falling apart. There are books, which were written in Kuala Lumpur for kids with the benefit of a private English-medium education, or which were donated by the New Zealand government in 1975, when their schoolkids thought they were outdated. There are dense, yellowing, moralist tales. There are books. And yet there aren't.

There are not books that the children want to read over and over again - there's no Hungry Caterpillar, or Brown Bear, or even the beautifully illustrated fairytales written by local authors that I bought on my trip to Kuala Lumpur. There are no bright pictures that help non-English speakers to understand the text. There's no understanding of what a seven-year-old or ten-year-old child looks for in a storybook.

And this is a shame, because what I see every morning is little ones dumping their bags in the classroom and rushing off to the library for the twenty-minute open reading session. It seems to stop by Year 3, but the older ones peek over my shoulder at whatever book I open up in school, or at my Kindle, and murmur the words to themselves. There is still this fascination with books, even without having the literature-rich background I was lucky enough to be born into. 

What the libraries do have is luminous walls.

Malinsau Primary School Library

In Malinsau, the library is brand new - when I arrived last year, it was locked to students because it was unsafe, but the librarian has done wonders with a spot of purple paint and some polystyrene letters. He's made it as welcoming as he can with the limited funds he has access to, but there's only so far it can stretch; the one bookshelf has been filled with every book he can find, and a few teachers' guides, and it's still not enough for the children.

But all this is about to change. Last week I was frantically busy with three proposals, one for each of the three schools with the least library resources. The British Council is funding just 15 schools in the Project in Sabah through a Power of Reading programme - basically a book flood, in which the school is 'flooded' with up to a thousand high quality storybooks aimed at the first three years of primary school. It's been very successful in raising literacy levels in rural schools all over the world, including South Africa, so there are very high hopes for this neglected corner of Malaysia, particularly my little cluster of schools, where only one in twenty students passed their final Year 6 national English exams last year.

I've had to guide all my mentees, headteachers, librarians, remedial teachers, and District Language Officer through statements of support, in-depth discussions, photography, mind-mapping, planning and even building - whatever it takes to get onto that list of 15 schools. In one school, we started building reading corners in the classrooms; after the initial discussion in which I described the project to the teachers and headmaster, the lovely head went off, called the caretaker with his machete, and disappeared into the bush at the back of the school to harvest some bamboo. They were hard at work building the first structure that very afternoon. 

The caretaker checks on his child-friendly tools.

The Year 3 students try on the frame for size.

Nearly done.

I had a laugh with the GB and caretaker about his machete, kept constantly at his side in a handmade wooden sheath. In Europe he'd be arrested for putting children in danger; in Sabah, kids are taught how to wield machetes safely from toddlerhood, a necessity for a life in which they are likely to need that awareness.

So yes, basically we did what needed to be done. 15 places for Sabah, from 300 schools on my Project - not an easy task. The proposals are in, and now all that we can do is wait to see what the board and the State Education Office say. I'm crossing all my fingers and toes, and so are some very excited little girls and boys. And now I hope you're crossing yours too :)