More on students' material

Gov't plans to spend extra at all school levels

MORE MONEY has been allocated to provide essential work material for students in the island's public-education sector for the year 2011-2012.

This was disclosed in the 2011-2012 Budget which was tabled in Parliament last Thursday. It showed that an additional sum was earmarked to produce and or procure educational material to support the curricula of infant, primary, all-age and secondary schools, in addition to the payment for rights to print primary-school textbooks.

Last year, the administration allocated a little more than $841 million to provide the necessary material for the students in the public-education facilities.

This fiscal year, the amount allotted has been hiked to $900 million.

Last year, hundreds of students in public schools across the island were forced to do without textbooks. It was reported that the critical shortage of educational material was jeopardising efforts to improve the country's literacy rate.

According to reports, children in grades one to three were the most affected.