State trails Haryana in book count at school libraries, ranked fourth

Punjab has ranked fourth in the country in terms of books per school library, according to the Union Ministry of Education’s Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) report for 2023-24.

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According to officials, Rs 16.67 crore provided by the Centre under its Samgra Scheme every year is spent to purchase books for school libraries across the state.

There are currently, 1,654 books per school in Punjab. Goa stands first with 3,364 books per school, followed by Kerela with 2,783 books. Neighbouring Haryana has 2,198 books every school, according to the report.

The report said Punjab schools, including aided and private ones, have a stock of 4.53 crore books in their libraries. There are a total 27,404 schools in Punjab, of which 19,242 are run by the government. Among the government schools, only 23 do not have a library while 46 government-aided schools lack the facility. Similarly, there are no libraries in 346 private schools.

Under the Central government scheme, every year a primary school gets ?5,000, middle school ?10,000, high school ?15,000 and senior secondary school ?20,000 for buying books. According to Punjab Education Department officials, books are purchased by the management committees of government schools. Every school can spend 10% of the total fund to buy syllabus books or those for competitive exams.

The report revealed that 97.5% of the Punjab schools have a library or library bank, and there are 1,503 digital libraries. According to the report, 66.1% of the schools in Punjab are equipped with the Internet while 92.8% of private schools have the facility.

A senior official of the Education Department said not only books are being given to government schools, a complete record of the readers is kept.

Shortage of librarians

Meanwhile, Government Teachers’ Union general secretary Gurwinder Singh Saskor said over 700 senior secondary schools in Punjab lack librarians or assistant librarians due to which the full utilisation of blood banks suffer. The post of a librarian is approved only in senior secondary schools.