School Texts Standardised ... Parents Relieved!!

Contact: Julita Peter

The Ministry of Education, Human Resource Development, Youth and Sports has taken another major step toward reducing the costs of schoolbooks to parents.  On Thursday, July 19, the Minister for Education signed a ministerial directive standardizing textbooks used in primary and secondary schools on the island and reducing the number of books students will be required to purchase.

Continuous complaints by parents about the number of books students have to carry daily and the frequent changing of books from class to class prompted officials of the Ministry of Education to set mechanisms in place to deal with the problems. In July last year the Ministry established a Textbook Review Commission to make recommendations for the most appropriate texts to be used by the various grades in the education system from kindergarten through to Form Five.

The approved textbooks will be utilized in all schools in the new school year until the next scheduled official review of textbooks.   Education Minister Honourable Mario Michel says supplementary material to enrich the learning process will be acquired by schools and the Ministry of Education.

The Ministry of Education is undertaking other initiatives to achieve significant reductions on the price of schoolbooks. These include negotiations for discounts with publishers such as Oxford University Press and the CAMDU textbooks, which were once bought by parents, will now be given to teachers for use in their daily teaching exercises.

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