The Education Ministry clarified that parents and students should expect free text books to be supplied to schools by the end of term one this year.
Education Minister, Mr Filipe Bole said getting the text books ready and printing was going to take a lot of time and as such, parents should not expect text books in schools from day one of term one.
Mr Bole said the textbook assistance was quite a costly exercise.
“Last year alone, we had looked at a figure of $1.5m to provide textbooks for the primary schools but we have an allocation of about $600,000 in our budget for the text books in secondary schools,” Mr Bole said.
“We did that for primary schools last year so primary schools are all set. As for secondary schools, we looked at a bigger amount. “It was about $12m for the provision of textbooks for secondary schools but that was too big an amount to get from Government.
“What the ministry decided was for Curriculum Development Unit officers to write textbooks for secondary students.”
Mr Bole said the CDU officers were still in the process of writing text books.
“Some sections are about to complete writing textbooks so we will start with those subjects,” he said.
“We are waiting for quotations to come in and they will be the ones that will be distributing textbooks for secondary students sometimes this year.
“That is to utilise our $600,000. Providing free textbooks to schools is good as it helps students in terms of access to education,” Mr Bole said.
He also highlighted that they were looking at distributing books in schools by the end of term one.
“Some of the academic subjects will be assisted through this assistance with supplying of secondary textbooks but not all subjects because some of the subject teachers are still working on textbooks,” Mr Bole said.
“The others have completed and we will target those areas, especially the technical and vocational areas.
“The industrial arts, agricultural science, home economics have been written and we will begin with them.
“For distribution, we are looking at the end of term one because we have to print and then supply it to all schools and that will take some time.”
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