Authors Demand Great Britain Make School Libraries Mandatory
Posted on July 1, 2009
High profile authors are banding together with teachers, publishers and librarians to ask the British government to fund a statutory scheme of school libraries. The group has created a petition for people to sign to promote the idea of increasing the size and scope of all school libraries.
Signatories to a petition to Number 10 include Philip Pullman, Horrid Henry creator Francesca Simon and former children's laureate Michael Rosen, as well as the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers Christine Blower, Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, top children's publishers and the directors of a raft of youth library associations.Only half of all secondary schools in Great Britain have a full-time librarian, and many of those are not technically qualified for the job. Philip Pullman said at a lecture at a comprehensive school last year that it would become "a byword for philistinism and ignorance" if it did not scrap its plans to close the school's library. We just love his ability to turn a phrase. After all, no one wants to become "a byword for philistinism and ignorance."The campaign's supporters, who also include the Carnegie medal winners Mal Peet and Beverley Naidoo, are concerned that while prisoners have the statutory right to a library, schoolchildren do not, and they believe it is essential that children get the habit of reading for pleasure. "[We] wholeheartedly support the right of prisoners to a library. It can be part of the process of rehabilitation through education. We are concerned however that school students do not have the same right. Research indicates that many young people who offend have low literacy levels," they say in a letter that will be sent to secretary of state for children, schools and families Ed Balls this evening by the campaign's head, the twice Carnegie-shortlisted author Alan Gibbons.