Occupation: Book Repair

It is not easy to learn when your textbook is falling apart and pages are missing! Yet, for young Malians, that is the sad reality. Since 92 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day, buying new textbooks is a considerable expense for many families.

The Government of Mali recognizes the unfortunate consequences of the lack of well-maintained textbooks, but it cannot afford to regularly purchase new textbooks for Mali's primary schools. Thanks to Canada, however, existing textbooks can now be repaired, thereby extending their lifespan and avoiding the need to buy new textbooks.

In recent years, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has funded the implementation of a pilot project to develop textbook repair capacity. This project formed part of the action plan of Mali's Ministry of Education and was implemented in cooperation with New Brunswick Community College in Dieppe, NB.

CIDA was selected to partner in this project, implemented in the Kayes region of western Mali. This region was ideally suited to the project, as the region is one of the best in terms of decentralized school management. The project aimed to establish textbook repair as a new trade, and to equip craftspersons to offer textbook repair services to schools throughout the Kayes region.

In Mali, a textbook normally lasts three years.

"You must understand the particular conditions in which these books are used," explains project technical advisor Modibo Diarra. "For instance, the glue keeping the pages in place cannot withstand the great heat of the Sahel climate: the glue melts! Sustainable solutions must be found to repair damaged books. Storage is also a problem: books do not last very long if they are poorly stored or eaten away by termites. Sometimes, textbooks are in such poor condition that repairers must join together sections from several different textbooks just to get one good book."

A craftsperson can repair 300 to 350 textbooks per month. There are four main techniques used: oversewing, perfect binding, a combination of the two (a stronger technique, invented in Mali) and side stitching. Depending on which technique the client chooses, the repair will cost from 300 to 400 CFA francs (about one Canadian dollar) per book. "Repairers are self-employed and travel from school to school with their toolbox. They can ply their trade anywhere, on the road, in their workshop if they have one, or at home," Mr. Diarra says.

The reconditioned textbooks are expected to have a positive impact on learning among Malian students in the Kayes region. Having textbooks in good condition will also improve the quality of teaching and, of course, lower-cost textbooks will help to ease the burden on parents.

"We know that books play a central role in learning. This is a key issue in improving basic education in Mali. When every child has a textbook, he or she can follow what the teacher is saying in the classroom and can also study at home," says Mr. Diarra.

The project promotes textbook repair as a new skilled trade for both women and men. Through the project, moreover, CIDA is taking another step toward the second Millennium Development Goal of achieving universal primary education. By making it possible to buy books at a lower cost, the project is helping to make education more readily available, and helping to keep pupils in school in Mali, where six out of ten children do not finish primary school.