We can't afford not to - Costing the provision of functional school - Publications

"We want equality. In some schools there are functioning libraries, but in others there aren’t.", says Nontsikelelo Dlulani (15), Grade 10 EE Youth Group Leadership Committee, Secretary.

This paper pursues three closely related objectives: to review the field of international and local research which, particularly over the past two decades, has pointed to the positive causal relationship between functional school libraries and improved learner outcomes; to contextualize the current state of affairs in South African schools, with a specific reference to the Department of Education (DoE)’s repeated failure to formulate a national policy on school libraries and librarians; and lastly, to provide detailed cost estimates which can be used as the basis for a comprehensive implementation plan.

Official surveys have revealed that South Africa’s learner outcomes rank poorly on the international stage, not only compared with learners from developed countries, but even among those from less-developed parts of sub-Saharan Africa. At the root of this problem lies the issue of illiteracy which, this paper argues, can be combated by ensuring that every public ordinary school has a stocked library serviced by a qualified full-time librarian.

Major international studies have determined that, all other things being equal, the provision of a functional school library will add between 10% and 25% to average learner outcomes. Local research has determined a strong correlation and causal relationship between the presence of a staffed library and higher academic performance. Libraries have also been found to be a cost-effective method of improving outcomes.

Only 7.23% of public ordinary schools in South Africa have functional libraries. These are almost entirely situated in former Model-C schools which are able to stock and staff these facilities through their own resources. A history of inequality, rooted in apartheid and Bantu education, underlies these unacceptable conditions that the government has to a large extent inherited. However, after fifteen years of democracy, the obvious benefi ts of functional libraries are still being ignored. Since 1997, six consecutive drafts for a national policy on school libraries have fallen short of adoption and implementation.

The total costs of provision calculated in this paper are based on the most up-to-date government statistics that were available at the time of writing. Divided into four categories, these include: infrastructure (R7 923 million); materials (R1 983 million); librarian training (R348 million); and librarian salaries (between R1 193 million and R2 671 million). If the initial provisioning of infrastructure, materials, training and salaries were implemented over ten years, these costs would collectively amount to between 1.6% and 2.6% of the education budget for that period. Thereafter, only salary expenditure would remain, which on its own would amount to between 0.9% and 1.9% of the annual budget.

In 2009, Equal Education (EE) launched the Campaign for School Libraries. This paper, a product of EE’s Policy, Communications and Research (PCR) Department, consolidates and expands upon some of the campaign’s key demands and uses them as the basis for a cost estimates guideline. It aims to draw the attention of policy makers to the pressing need for libraries in every school across South Africa, by serving as a starting point for what will hopefully be refi ned and developed into a clear-cut implementation plan.