Challenges of school libraries and quality education in Tanzania: A review

Abstract

Quality education is fundamental for pupils’ advancement in any country. School libraries are said to be the second class for pupils because of the important role they play in enhancing the quality of education. School libraries are the avenues for cultivating pupils’ morals, the important facade for improving pupils’ education quality and for effective facilities for developing special technical education, serving as a friendly place for increasing pupils’ total education quality. The general idea for school libraries is to intensify the quality of education in schools through provision of adequate facilities such as chairs, tables, textbooks and qualified library staff to guide pupils in appropriate usage of libraries for better performance and hence lead to quality education in the country. Despite of the tremendous contribution of school libraries in increasing the students’ performance it has been discovered that this role is not recognized by most of the government officials. The challenges such as staffing, funding, lack of standard library building and frequent change in curriculum that affects collection development need to be addressed by the government if at all the country has to provide quality education to her citizens.