I heart libraries :)

This past weekend, I payed a visit to the Central Library in Cape Town. This beautiful library was once the Voluntary Drill Hall designed by James Tennant of the Royal Engineers. This Drill Hall was erected in 1884 and designed to serve the volunteer forces of the Western Division as headquarters as well as an indoor venue for instruction and for drilling in bad weather.

The Central Library with its beautiful steel roof trusses is 56 years old and have a book collection that includes all 11 languages. During my visit there I noticed that this is no quiet library. With more than 70 000 people that visit this user-friendly library every month, it is a place where people meet, take out books, study, do homework or research or even engage in activities and workshops. The Central Library is the largest library in and around Cape Town and is the social hub of the inner city! :)

Creating a reading culture

Since the Eastern Cape’s public schools have the fewest functional libraries and computer centres, it is difficult to find a central location where learners from different schools, with no libraries or computer centres, can meet and share library material that include visual and digital media. As mentioned before, transport is another obstacle to overcome. The aim is to allow all learners in the Nelson Mandela Metro access to educational material. Thus, the concept is to make use of a central hub (chosen building) from which mobile ‘pods’ (recycled shipping containers) can be easily transported to several primary schools with no resources, in the Nelson Mandela Metro, and possibly to areas in the Eastern Cape, in order to distribute library material.

The central hub and the mobile ‘pods’ (recycled shipping containers) will be used to create spaces which serve functions such as a library area, computer centre, study/homework area, cafeteria and an integrated playground. The cafeteria will only sell healthy food and drinks to learners to promote healthy eating habits necessary to reach maximal educational potential. The playground will encourage learners to engage in several physical activities. It has been proven that physical activities improve learners’ academic scores.

The functions listed above will together create a secure environment where learners from Grade 1 to 7 will have access to reading material and computers as well as space to do homework or study. Through the sustainable design approach learners will also become aware of their environment and how to take care of it. This resource centre and its mobile ‘pods’ will incorporate valuable environmental lessons and create interactive learning opportunities for learners. 

I truly believe that this reuse proposal will most definitely add value to the education of countless learners in the Nelson Mandela Metro, as well as the Eastern Cape, without access to library material, such as books and computers, as it will provide them with these educational tools at the comfort of their own school. The proposed function will play a critical role in growing our nation. Books open a world of learning for children. The concept of the resource centre and its mobile ‘pods’ are not solely based on the distribution of information in the educational sense, which is important, but also to implant the love of reading, exercising and their environment as well as encourage children to open their imaginations. 

The images below served as inspiration for my B.Tech treatise proposal. The Vissershok container classroom by Tsai Design Studio (top) and the Jerusalem children's home by Four Design and Architecture (bottom). The children's home has been constructed from 28 shipping containers!

The heart of the SA education crisis

The right to education for all has been a key public priority since South Africa’s democratic transition. The legacy of apartheid, and in particular the fragmented education system which for over 40 years was based on racial division, left South Africa and its people with a deep-rooted crisis.

A mere 22% of 24 699 public schools in South Africa have libraries from which only 8% are functional. One can also look at it from another perspective – 78% of South Africa’s public schools do not have libraries. This appalling figure is the number of schools that do not have a physical space for a library, nor a book collection.

With relation to the Eastern Cape, only 9% of this province’s 5676 public schools have libraries, denying the rest of the learners access to regular reading opportunities. This figure further indicates that this province has the fewest libraries in relation to the number of schools. This comes as no surprise that the Eastern Cape is one of the provinces that perform the poorest academically compared to public schools in other provinces.

Further statistics show that more than 19 000 primary and secondary schools, in South Africa, do not have libraries or computer centres. KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape have the most shortages with more than 4000 schools in each province without a library, as opposed to Gauteng and the Western Cape that have fewer than 1000 schools each that do not have libraries or computer centres.

This really goes to the heart of the South African education crisis.