Capacity building program for teacher librarians in Akuressa zonal educational area, Sri Lanka: experience recap

Abstract

School libraries should be properly monitored and enriched with well-trained teacher librarians. It would be an immense strength to achieve the development goals of the country. However, previous literature highlighted that there is a lacuna towards the attention of school libraries and training needs of teacher librarians. Present study is aimed to present the outcome of a capacity building program conducted to teacher librarians of the Akuressa educational zone of Sri Lanka. Present study summaries new concepts that 51 teacher librarians learned, and aspects that they are confident to implement as prospective activities in their schools. It can recommend conducting capacity building programs frequently with proper monitoring and disseminate the outcome to the librarian’s community. Depending on the feedback of the participants and results, it can suggest that conducting capacity building programs in cyclic manner is better than conducting instructor-led trainings occasionally. Similarly, the outcome of the present study can be monitored, and the next outreach activity can get insights from the experience learned from the present capacity building program. At the same time, policy makers and educational authorities must pay enough attention towards the wellbeing of school libraries and the quality of teacher librarians in the country.