Conflicting reports on primary school textbooks

Both primary and secondary schools throughout the country yesterday reported a smooth opening of the new school year without any major problems. However, primary school officials stated that they were still waiting “with bated breath” for the textbooks promised to them by the Ministry of Education. The books, which will be used in the areas of Reading, Mathematics, Language Arts and Science, are yet to be delivered to schools, principals reported. An official at the ministry told Newsday that the ship bringing in the science books for Standard One and infants was “a little late” but that it should be here shortly so that the books would hopefully be delivered by the end of the week. Adding that well over 900,000 books were to be delivered to primary schools, he said the distribution process would be monitored by school supervisors, who would be assessing the situation.

Checks with primary schools in Port-of-Spain and along the East/West Corridor confirmed that the schools had not yet received the books, but as principal of Curepe Presbyterian, Samuel Bejai, puts it, “We are not making that a problem.” Communications Specialist at the Education Ministry, Mervyn Crichlow, explained to Newsday that the ministry was not the one responsible for delivering the books to primary schools — it was the duty of booksellers and publishers. When Newsday contacted Lexicon Trinidad Limited, publishers of the Language Arts textbook for primary schools, we were told that they had already delivered the books to booksellers who would distribute them to primary schools. Sources at Lexicon could not say what was responsible for the delay in delivery. Teddy Mohammed of Mohammed’s Bookstore and publishers of the Science textbook admitted that the books were not yet here due to the “late ordering” but gave the assurance that the books would be in the country by today.

Newsday was told by RIK’s CEO Joycelyn Bodden that they had already delivered books to over 35 primary schools, and assured that the distribution process would be completed by the end of the week. RIK is responsible for the Mathematics textbook and atlas. Frank Porter of Caribbean Children’s Press Limited (CCL) revealed that they had passed 50 percent of the Reading textbooks to schools since last week and that the rest would be distributed this week. Commenting on yesterday’s opening of schools, President of the TT Unified Teachers’ Association (TTUTA), Trevor Oliver said the organisation had not received any adverse reports, and that they were eagerly awaiting the introduction of the improved school curriculum.
Stating that TTUTA wanted to ensure that the curriculum was “motivating” students, Oliver said he was quite happy with some of the measures outlined by the Ministry to increase security in schools. Secondary schools reported that the new academic year began very well for them as textbooks to be distributed to Forms I and II were delivered since last Tuesday. Sources at the Education Ministry revealed that over 230,358 books had been delivered, and that 125 Government schools and 33 private schools would have received books under the Textbook Rental/Loan Programme. Efforts to obtain a comment from the Education Minister regarding the opening of schools proved futile, and we were told to expect an official statement by late yesterday afternoon. However, no statement had been received up to press-time.