The government this year has allocated Rs 62.1 million for establishing the libraries in community schools. Similarly, the MoE has already endorsed the Library and Information Management Regulation this year to promote the establishment of book corners at schools and communities, MoE Spokesperson Mahashram Sharma said.
The MoE is leading the formal program on the occasion of Library Day on Saturday under the theme ´One village one Library, one school one library´.
This year, Rs 200000 would be spent to organize the program.[break]
The ministry´s report on five Prioritized Minimum Enabling Condition (PMEC) indicators in the community schools shows that in Kathmandu, 91 percent schools lack library, whereas only 14 percent schools in Bhaktapur have the facility. Similarly, 90 schools in Lalitpur do not have library.
Only 842 schools were found to be implementing the prioritized conditions out of the total 23,224 community schools that provided all the data of PMEC status in their schools. That means less than 4 percent schools in the country have met the PMEC indicators.
A rough estimation shows that around 1000 to 1200 public library exists currently in the country. However, organization such as Room to Read, Nepal Library Foundation, School Library among others are donating books and logistics to establish libraries in the community schools of rural areas of Nepal.
The first library in Nepal was established by then Shah King Grivan Yuddha Bikram Shah in 1869 BS on Bhadra 15, which was called Pustak Chitai Tahabil. Some of the books of that library have now been archived at the Department of Archaeology.
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