Educational Issues
Restoring the culture of reading, writing and research -By Ismail Misbahu
…they have reviewed the Hamza El-Rufai Library established purposely to promote adult and women literacy as well as creativity in art and literature among students and researchers alike. Here is a quotation of what they had reviewed under the guides and instructions of their teachers.
I was amazed by the way I see school children of Junior Secondary School having the unquenched desire and courage to cure the ‘flue’ that eroded the culture of reading, writing and research in many secondary and tertiary institutions in Nigeria. This is one of the borin tasks ahead of many news-platforms such as opinionnigeria.com!
The children’s burning desire to conduct a library research⸺discover, review and summarise books of varied and related aspects of literature, philosophy, history, religion, law etcetera, has indeed proved the other side of the story. These are the Junior Secondary School Students of Mufnaj International School whose teaching orientation and learning has enabled them to reclaim the audacity of, not only reading and writing but also the ability to review a library, which had hitherto been exercised only among students of tertiary institutions.
So far so good, they have reviewed the Hamza El-Rufai Library established purposely to promote adult and women literacy as well as creativity in art and literature among students and researchers alike. Here is a quotation of what they had reviewed under the guides and instructions of their teachers. I sincerely feel warm to share it here if only for the information about the library that may be useful to students and researchers alike.
”Here we are, J.S.S. 1 Students, Mufnaj International School. We are standing here before you to give a review of our excursion to Hamza El-Rufai Library, exercised on the 15 of February, 2022.
”The aim of our excursion is to champion the restoration of the decaying culture of reading, writing and research in schools within Kaduna State.
”The orientation of our thought is rebuilt through the excursion and we expect that at the end of this presentation, our school would realise that having a special library time in our time-table as well as a reading room in our school is one step forward to restoring the culture of reading, writing and research.
”Hamza El-Rufai Library is located at Mallam Isa Hassan Street, Unguwar Dosa, Kaduna. It was named after the son of the late Hajiya Hadiza El-Rufa’i, Hamza and was put under the care of Yesmen El-Rufai Foundation.
”The library came into existence in 2017 and is equipped with both manual and digital catalogues. It has over 5,000 books, largely literary ones collected from private donations. These include important figures like Hajiya Maryam Uwais, Sadiq Dzukogi, Lukman Edu and Friends, My Rainbow Books and Aide Kisanga.
”The library is made free to all students and researchers across Kaduna state. It is organized into sections: manual and digital. The shelves in the manual library cover subjects like Children Literature, Motivational Books, Essays, Religion, Philosophy, History, Mathematics, Chemistry, Physics etc.
”The digital (E-Library) is also equipped with a Software, the Granary Software covering various subjects relevant for secondary and tertiary institutions.
”The criteria for the selection of our books are based on the impressive coherence of the title; the theme or the subject matter; the cultural orientation of the author and the year (or date) of publication.
”We select as many books as possible, about 100 books to put in approximation. Some of the books selected include The Amazing Adventures written by Izi and Lary⸺the Dinosaur, Climate of Corruption authored by Lado Yari and a similar one, Harvest of Corruption written by F.O. Ogbeche; The Child’s Dream: Creating the Future of Nigeria Child written by E.O. Angela, Legend from Yorubaland written by Kemi Morgan, The Orphan Boy written by James Osita, Peace and Pieces written by Sola Awonibi and so many others.”
The amazing children, not only consulted the books but more importantly also they had been able to review as much as possible especially the ones cited above. They really have become the change agents of restoring the national culture of reading, art and literature.
Mr. Misbahu wrote via
