BHUBANESWAR: In a bid to create an interest in books among children, all government schools in the state will have reading corners from the coming academic session.The government will also improve libraries in the schools and form reading clubs to help increase the knowledge of the students. This will be done under the Centre’s Padhe Bharat, Badhe Bharat scheme, which was launched last year and which gives an annual library grant to schools.“We will start the scheme in all government schools from the coming academic session. The scheme, which falls under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, has many components but the focus is on improving the reading habit of students and strengthening libraries in schools,” said the director of Odisha Primary Education Project Authority, B S Poonia.The reading corners in the schools will have a selection of children’s literature including fiction and non-fiction, magazines, posters, drama, folk stories, translations, adaptations, poems and folk songs, depending on the students’ age and interest. The books will be easily accessible to the children and prominently displayed in the reading corners or libraries. The children can either read in school or borrow the books for a few days.Under the scheme, each school will get between Rs 5,000 to Rs 20,000 for setting up reading corners and reading clubs and organising various activities for the children. The scheme will be implemented in 56,058 state-run schools in the first phase, official sources said.The children will be provided enough opportunities to write and explore their creativity. There is also a proposal to build home-school linkages by organising various activities on their food, festivals, dress, language, daily life experiences, said Poonia.The scheme has been welcomed by parents and educationists in the state but many raised question about its implementation. “The concept of library or providing books to children is not new. It has been there for years but was not implemented properly. Teachers keep the libraries locked and the children are not allowed to read books during the library period. Teachers must be trained to allow children to read,” said Ramakanta Patnaik, a retired school headmaster.Teachers, on the other hand, said they were already overburdened with non-teaching work and such schemes only increased their workload. “We want the standard of children’s education to improve. But before that the government must fill the vacant teachers’ posts. Starting from the mid-day meal to taking part in various surveys and other duties, a teacher is overburdened with work,” said a teacher in a government school, requesting anonymity.

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