Now that the August Festivals have ended, the Government of Grenada has reiterated its commitment of providing free school books to the nation's children.
The National Democratic Congress which is the government of the day campaigned on providing free school books as part of an immediate initiative to relieve the financial burden placed on parents in purchasing books for the children.
New Education Minister, Franka Bernardine disclosed that the programme will provide the books for every child, at kindergarten and primary.
However, for the first year of implementation, the secondary school children will receive four text books. They are Maths, English, ITC and Science.
The Education Minister said it was easier to provide the books for the primary level since the books there are already standardised."The secondary (schools) have until 31st October to come up with what standard text will be used in the other categories," she said.
She described the free school books programme as an excellent initiative. "What we are trying to do, is to take away that whole anxiety of providing books from the minds of parents and teachers," she said.
Parents are called upon to pay $25.00 for the handling and transport charges."All you (the parents) need to do is to listen out to hear when your school is ready to deliver the books," she said.
Just last week GRENADA TODAY observed boxes of books left the Grenada Teachers School Supplies on St. John's Street, St. George's with vehicles assigned to the Ministry of Education, destined for the Presentation Brothers' College, and St. Paul's Government School.
The female Education Minister noted that over the years parents have been hard pushed to find large sums of money to purchase the books for their children.
According to Minister Bernadine, with the government's initiative of providing the books, parents can now focus on other issues that are preventing their children from learning in school.
She also spoke about plans to lengthen the school day from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. to suit the working day of parents.
According to her, an extra curricular activity will be developed which includes school-based service clubs.
"It will take the concerns of what happens to them (the school children) between 2:00 and 5:00 (p.m.) off the streets," the Education Minister said.
Minister Bernardine sees this as one of the innovative ideas that have come forward to develop the all-round educational level of the nation's children and that serious consideration is being given to develop that plan.
