On Thursday, 4 April 2024, TBP conducted a Reflection Meeting virtually, which was attended by 40 school partners. In this meeting, all schools were asked to reflect on what had worked well and what needed to improve in their library management in order to ensure the sustainability of the child-friendly library program.

40 TBP School Partners’ principals, teacher coordinators, and librarians attended Reflection Meeting on April 4th, 2024

Previously, the first reflection meeting held last February resulted in schools being more motivated to improve their library performance ranging from increasing book checkout rate to maintaining a regular reading activity as well as fostering innovations to boost student interest in reading. Thus, in this particular reflection meeting many schools reported positive changes.

Looking at book checkout rate, SDK Kelewae was sitting on the top of the chart at 8.0 – this means one student could read up to 8 books a month. Similarly, SDK Penginanga climbed up the ladder from 11th to 5th at 4.98 – this means one student could read approximately 5 books per month. Overall, the book checkout rate of 40 schools is at 2.44 meaning that one student in Nagekeo district read at least 2 books each month between January to February 2024.

Edeltrudis, the meeting facilitator, was asking SDK Kelewae’s librarian about the good practices in increasing their book checkout rate

While for reading activity rate, over 60% of school partners had conducted reading activities regularly with SDK Kelewae again performing the best in this area. However, the rest of the school partners needed to improve the frequency of their teachers doing reading activities in the library. Edeltrudis, the facilitator of the meeting, explained the direct relationship between reading activity and book checkout rate. The data from 66 school partners in 2022 indicated the trend of both elements were usually parallel – when the reading activity rate was high, the book checkout rate was also high, and when the reading activity rate was low, so was the book checkout rate. Therefore, schools were expected to manage their reading activities as one resort to improve the book checkout rate.

SDN Aegela’s librarian was explaining about the challenges in conducting reading acitivity in their school

When asked about the challenges, the school representatives explained that many cluster or regional sports and arts competitions took place between January and February. Also, some librarians were sick or took maternity leave during the period. 

Lastly, success stories ended the meeting beautifully. Some schools such as SDK Ngedu, SDK Doki, SDI Rata, and SDN Anakoli had successfully introduced their wall magazine in which their students posted their creative works. Another innovation was schools such as SDI Rata, SDK Ngedu, and SDI Dombe holding a local literacy competition and SDI Rata, SDI Dombe, and SDK Doki holding a regular parent engagement program.

SDI Dombe’s teacher was talking about the innovations in their school