Someone has to know how the collection is organised, borrowed, returned and kept worth reading.
Across six primary and upper-primary schools, students joined Bal Sanskar Pustakalay operational committees. Thirty children took part in capacity-building sessions on managing and operating their school libraries.
The design marks the shift. Children were not treated only as the end users of a resource. They were brought into its stewardship.
Committee members could keep track of books, encourage peers to read, and notice whether access was fair. In small, repeated responsibilities they learned what civics usually only describes: a shared asset has rules, the rules can be understood, and the people affected by a system can help run it.
Teachers and school leaders stayed responsible for protecting school resources and ensuring inclusion. Students added energy, peer knowledge and daily presence. DEHAT facilitated the capacity building and supported the libraries themselves.
The same record notes six school libraries serving a much larger school population, without circulation figures or reading assessments. What was created and prepared were six student operational groups. That is the claim, and at this scale it is enough.
The committees also argue against a narrow reading of participation as attendance. Leadership here was quiet: remembering where a book belonged, helping a younger learner choose one, raising a damaged-book concern, making sure the materials did not go back behind a locked door.
Leadership here was quiet and practical.
Trust Children With Something Real
Children develop capacity when they hold a meaningful, age-appropriate role. A library committee is one of the cheapest available.