Free textbooks finally reaching all schools
Never look a gift horse in the mouth, goes the old adage, but perhaps because it’s an election year, the filly called free textbooks is being examined from head to tail. With primary schools now getting down to post holiday business, News Five’s Janelle Chanona reports that—for the most part— the new books have finally reached the nation’s classrooms.
Alan Genitty, Deputy Chief Education Officer
“It really was an enormous process that we had to go through. Fortunately we have completed the process, not as quick as teachers and parents would have wanted but nonetheless we did our level best to get it out to the schools in time. And as of today, we have addressed all government aided and government schools in terms of having textbooks in the schools.”
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
“After suffering several setbacks, today officials in the Ministry of Education say the government’s free textbook program is in the final stages of implementation. At the Belize District Education Centre this morning, the last books were being processed and packaged for distribution. According to Deputy Chief Education Officer Alan Genitty, the technical delay has been a learning experience but says the hold-ups should not negatively affect the children.”
Alan Genitty
“You find that many times it’s just after all the celebrations that the teaching really gets into high gear and really steam forward. So I would imagine that good teachers—and I believe that the majority of our teachers are good teachers—would have been preparing, working well with our students over the past couple weeks and I am sure that they will be resourceful enough in terms of ensuring that they catch-up with any shortfall that they may have with their teaching.”
Ursula Griffith, Principal, Queen’s Square Anglican
“The few books which we lack will not cause us to have to make up because the students are getting the material and actually the books are practice work. They are getting the concepts and the content from the teachers while they are teaching which we get from our annual plan, which we get from our national curriculum. So it’s not teaching from the books per say.”
Most of the students at Queen’s Square Anglican primary school have their books but educators adapted teaching plans to accommodate those without them.
Ursula Griffith, Principal
“We have classes in which all the students have the books in those particular classes. For the other class, in most cases, it’s a portion of one class. In some cases, it’s just one class, what we do in those cases, we have the material placed, it’s taught first of course, we don’t just give them books, and then it’s placed on the blackboard and they do the work in their exercise books.”
Clement Wade, General Manager, Catholic Primary Schools
“For teachers, this is a minor hiccup in that teachers are very resourceful and they will do what it takes to do to keep children occupied and working.”
More than half of the country’s primary students are educated in one hundred and twenty-three Catholic schools. According to Clement Wade, General Manager of Catholic Primary Schools, the textbook program will make a significant difference in the lives of many children.
Clement Wade
“Before the free textbooks came, there wasn’t a single school that would open on the first day that have all their books. Because many parents are just too poor and in fact, in the past if you go to our remote schools, all year would pass without a third of the children getting textbooks anyhow, and teachers were making do under the stringent situation for as long as I have been general manager, which is twenty-one years.”
Ursula Griffith
“There is a portion of our population who come to school lacking textbooks, lacking materials. For that portion of students it will improve their performance as well as their attendance.”
Alan Genitty, Deputy Chief Education Officer
“It was a very, very, very big effort on the part of the Ministry of Education in the processing of these textbooks and I think that many times the Belizean population, some people may not appreciate the amount of work that we had to go through in the processing of these books to get them out to the schools.”
Clement Wade
“The books are in Belize so if your child—or probably in the school ready to give out—if your child then have a little patience, it is there and it will come to you.”
Reporting for News Five, I am Janelle Chanona.
The Ministry of Education reminds principals and administrators to send in requisition forms for additional textbooks they may require and return surpluses to District Education Centres as quickly as possible.
