With schools across Australia likely to need 3 000 teacher librarians in the coming years, a Charles Sturt University (CSU) academic last week highlighted the growing shortfall when she addressed a Federal parliament committee in Canberra investigating the problem.

 

“Charles Sturt University believes the school library is an important part of school life. We applaud the considerable recent investment in Australian schools as part of the Federal government’s Building Education and Digital Education Revolution program. The building and refurbishment of primary school libraries recognises the fundamental contribution school libraries make to student learning,” said Ms Lyn Hay, a lecturer with the CSU School of Information Studies.

 

“However, schools need the professional expertise of a teacher librarian to get the best from these new and improved facilities. With the shift to school-based funding, some vacancies in primary schools have not been filled with a qualified teacher librarian – the school principal has replaced the position with an administrative assistant or parent volunteers and uses the saved funds for staffing other programs."

 

At the Canberra hearing, Chair of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Education and Training, Ms Sharon Bird, MP, said as a major educator in teacher librarianship, CSU was well-positioned to comment on the future of teacher librarians, and how the role of the teacher librarian is changing in the digital information age. Up to 90 graduates are produced each year from CSU teacher librarian courses, which are accredited by the Australia Library and Information Association.

 

“Effective national policy is vital to fulfil the potential of the school library and the role of the teacher librarian who is responsible for developing effective learning programs with classroom teachers to maximise the benefits of the government’s investment,” Ms Hay said.

 

“We are at a critical turning point. We need to ‘reengineer’ a number of existing school libraries into flexible, dynamic, ‘high-tech’ learning centres designed to prepare students to function effectively in an increasingly complex informational and technological world. But this will depend on having sufficient teacher librarians to undertake a leadership role in the school – someone with the skills and leadership to make this vision happen.”

 

Ms Hay recognised that, as the school’s information professional, teacher librarians must be successful collaborators who work with principals and teachers to ensure the integration of information and digital literacies across the curriculum and ready school students for a ‘digital world’.

 

“Charles Sturt University students learn that they will be challenged by institutional, cultural, management, technological, interpersonal and staffing pressures. We provide them with strategies to deal with these pressures, preparing them to be information leaders in their schools,” she said.

 

The Parliamentary committee is looking for ways of attracting younger teachers and school leavers to these positions, as the average age of teachers seeking to re-train as teacher librarians is around 40. CSU’s Master of Education (Teacher Librarianship) aims to meet the needs of teachers who wish to become teacher librarians, and provides a specialist degree for current teacher librarians without a teacher librarianship qualification.