This program, which covers 35 small libraries established by the NTA in primary and secondary schools, is continuing in 2014. General training is being conducted in the most improved school libraries in the program, giving teachers the opportunity to learn from the best facilities. Then in May and June the library trainer Pak Frans, who is the Chief Librarian of the Catholic University in Kupang, will follow up with ‘individual’ training of teachers in the worst libraries.

This library program, which was started over 6 years ago, is one of the NTA’s more successful ventures. It is being boosted this year by a generous grant from the Australia Indonesia Association of Canberra, which enables us to distribute books to supplement the training. It’s interesting to recall that about 10 years ago Jo Keating, a keen NTA member then teaching in Flores, began a report by writing ‘Imagine a school without books…’ That situation characterized most Flores and West Timor schools at that time, and since then we’ve made good progress in reversing it.